


Forget to Remember

by semiiramiis (HikaruAdjani)



Series: The Last Days of Grace [3]
Category: Warcraft III
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5437436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikaruAdjani/pseuds/semiiramiis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of The Last Days of Grace/Criminals and Sinners</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chaviji](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Chaviji).



> I think this one needs a little (okay, a lot!) of explanation. I am not only a computer gamer, but a table top gamer, and to say I owed somebody a game would be putting it mildly. Unfortunately, all I had in mind was Clarimonde. So I ran a home rules game based on her story for my best friend. I also have another friend who's been screaming for "MORE Clair, dammit!" When she heard where this game had gone, she demanded I write it for her and send it. Since the game covered a 36 hour period with zero sleep, lore got thrown out along the way.
> 
> So...For Chaviji, Runetotem US, Horde; and Branwyn & alts et al, Runetotem US, Alliance... And everyone else who wants to risk reading it...

I wanted to die. There was no other way to put it. I was not a fool; I had known this day was coming, but to actually face it, no. My hands were stained with blood, but there was nothing new about that. I had killed so many. What was different was that this blood had not been spilled by me, that this blood flowed from one I loved. He had been limp for awhile, his silver shot head pillowed in my lap. He was...dead. Baudoin. Dead. Gone. My buttress against everything that came against me, fallen. This hurt more than my own death had, a hundred times worse. I felt colder than I had then. Emptier. Less.

"Clair." Jaina's voice was desperate, "I..."

She had no words, but then, what was there to say? Baudoin was gone...

"Only because you leave him fallen. Cast the circle. Call the power. Raise him. He would return to your side, forever..." If the words, the thoughts, were Arthas's, I could rage, but he had been silent and small in my mind since it had happened. His full attention was locked upon me, but he had not put voice to that focus. Likewise, if it came from my runeblade, I could throw it from me, rage at it, but it was shocked into silence. That thought was entirely mine... which meant I could not turn my back on it. I could raise Baudoin, the vaunted Ironfist of the Order of the Silver Hand. I could snatch the oaths he had given me, the very depths of his love, and yank him back to me.

"Clair. I..." Jaina attempted it again, but her voice failed. Once I had pitied her, chased by so many, and caught by none. Now I envied her. "Clair. We need to go. We can't stay here like this. They know where we are, now."

If I stayed, perhaps the Legion could accomplish what others said was impossible. Perhaps they could destroy what Arthas had built. Perhaps they could destroy me. Then I could...

My hands moved of their own volition, cradling Baudoin's head as I lowered it gently to the ground. "Clair will not leave his remains." My lips formed the words, it was my own contralto voice to give them sound, but I did not speak them. My eyes moved to Jaina, who now regarded me with a mixture of cold relief and more than a little dread. She recognized when Arthas spoke through me. "Even I could not compel her to do that."

"We do not ask that of her. We would not leave Baudoin...living or dead."

"Good. Bring him, and I will handle her."

So, I was handled all of the way back to Lordaeron, left alone only when I slept the sleep of the dead. If it wasn't Arthas moving me, it was Jaina hovering over me, her eyes dark and her face pale. Word preceded my progress, Bayard met us on the road, and he didn't need to say a word. His eyes, the very set of his chin, told me he had already been informed. He dropped his horse into step beside mine, studying me. "Is...she...?"

"No." Jaina snapped in response, riding behind me. "She's not well. Most of the time that is Arthas riding her."

"And my father still lies dead?" Those eyes, so much like his father's, measured my face. He was a mage of the Kirin-Tor. He had some idea of my power, some idea of my abilities. He realized that if Baudoin still rested dead, then neither Arthas nor I had attempted to raise him.

"He does." She sighed.

He nodded slowly, resting a hand upon my shoulder. "Mama." He breathed, and Arthas released his hold upon me, retreating back to his cautious watch and wait.

"Bayard, my son." I breathed through lips that didn't wish to unlock. My son. Baudoin's son. The only we had birthed through blood and desire. The only one who was truly Baudoin's legacy to this world.

"Anelas awaits your return." He murmured. "The news has hit him hard. Renata, more so."

I frowned. Baudoin had stood as an implacable father to my firstborn, and to the one I had brought home later. Neither were born of him, Anelas belonged to Arthas, and Renata was anyone's guess, but he had raised them both as if they were just as much his. His heart had been that big...

Bayard dropped beside me, silently shadowing my way to Lordaeron, and I studied him. He had much of Baudoin in him, none doubted his paternity. He had his sire's brandy eyes, fringed with the same excess of lashes. He had Baudoin's stubborn jaw and narrow lips, but he had also been marked by my smaller stature, far from the Ironfist's bulk. While his father had been a Hillsbrad farmer in finery until his last breath, Bayard De Nemesio was the noble heir my father had torn himself up wanting. "Does the line hold?" He finally dared to ask, and I sighed.

"Baudoin's fall has buttressed the line for now." None who had stood beside him wished Baudoin's death to be in vain. They'd hold...for now. He had bought time, and a glorious death... One I would not take from him. I understood what it was to stand without that final chapter, to have lost the right to die as I had lived, a paladin of Lordaeron. "Bayard. You need not fear."

His eyes turned to me, puzzled and concerned. There was plenty to fear, that expression told me, and he found the statement incomprehensible. The Legion moved again, on our doorstep. That had been the call to bring Baudoin out of retirement, to bring the aging Ironfist back onto the line of battle. "My mother?" He queried slowly.

"I will not raise Baudoin." Let him lie, in rest. Let him go to that place I knew was there, that place that sheltered Uther. If Uther was truly gone, he would not come back to me, but he had. He had continued to watch over me, love me, beyond his death. His love powered the sword at my side, riding on the opposite hip from the runeblade gifted to me by Arthas. "I will...let him lie."

Equal parts relief and despair crossed my youngest son's face, I had made solid the words he prayed for, and dreaded, all at once. On one hand, I would not bring his father back as an abomination, that which had made him a paladin, a servant of the Light, forever dead within him. On the other, I had just turned my back on Baudoin, to let him go. Bayard had been raised from childhood with a parent he knew was dead, and seemed none the worse for the experience. I had still been there. I had tucked him in bed; I had soothed his fears and his fevers. I had fed him, hugged him, loved him, in spite of my death. But he understood that I was wrong. I was dead. That which had shone from within me was forever doused...

"I replaced that with more, Clair. So very much more... You glow with power. Beauty, incarnate."

I frowned at Arthas's assertion. Yes, and Baudoin had been the one to truly make me believe I was still beautiful. Not Arthas. "I am forever in your debt, my Prince." I returned, truthfully. If I had not been raised, I would have left my children without me. Baudoin as well.

"Lay the Ironfist to rest, however you see fit. Return to your estates and put your affairs in order. I will give you as much time as I can."

His attention turned from me slightly, now that I had shown some signs of thinking again, he loosened his grasp upon me. "So we rise against this threat to Azeroth?" I asked, and his attention sharpened back upon me. Only as his Consort General would I find the wherewithal to avenge Baudoin's death.

"Azeroth is mine, Clarimonde. Mine. Not the Legion's. Yes, we rise against this. And yes, I will give you what you need to grind your husband's killers into the ground beneath your bootheels, my General, my Consort."

I grinned in spite of myself. There were times I loved him so.


	2. Chapter 2

The two of them watched me from the moment I became visible, and I stared back at them. Anelas Menethil, King of Lordaeron, stood leaning against the mantle, far from his throne. His adopted sister had been pacing the aisle, and she froze in mid stride when I stepped into the empty room. She started to say something immediately, then silenced, her gaze going to her brother.

"My mother." Anelas breathed when I stepped into the light. "Is the news I have accurate?" There were deepened lines around his mouth, and his brows were lowered. He knew already, he just needed to hear it from me. His sister shuddered, her eyes begged for a different truth than the one I had to give.

"The Legion moves on Azeroth again, from Medivh's portal." That, he already knew, but I needed that beginning to settle my voice and my heart to the next words. "Baudoin, the Ironfist, has fallen in battle." Perhaps I was still dazed, for those words fell easier than I thought they would.

Renata caught her breath behind me, and Anelas glanced in her direction. I recognized that, she'd been told to hold her tongue before me. Anelas was supposed to be the one to handle this. A wise choice, he was much calmer than his impetuous sibling.

"And does he stay down, my mother?"

"I will not raise him." I stated coldly, "And neither will Arthas. I will allow Baudoin to die as a paladin of the Light, the one thing he truly was. I will permit him the glory of a fine death, brought to him on the field of battle, standing for what he believed in. He died for me. He died for you. He died for Lordaeron, and the Order. He died for what was right and whole, and I will not take that from him. From you. From Lordaeron, or the Order." My fortitude failed, and I hiccupped on the last syllables. There were strong hands on my shoulders, and I turned into the support that Bayard offered me.

"Shhh... Mama." he breathed, cradling my ear to his chest. I could feel his heartbeat, strong within his chest.

"You speak for Arthas?" Anelas demanded, in a voice so much like his own father's that I almost laughed.

"I will not raise the Ironfist. You do, or no one does."

"Arthas will not raise Baudoin." I had known that before those words. With Baudoin gone... my reprieve was gone as well. "I was permitted to stay by his side while he lived. He lives no more. Arthas has no use for Baudoin, Anelas." Baudoin was what had kept me from embracing my position as Arthas's true general. Now, nothing kept me from that. My children were all adults. Anelas stood as Lordaeron's king. Bayard, as my own heir, stood as mage of the Kirin-Tor. And Renata...

My eyes fell upon her. She was as beautiful as she had been as a toddler shining through fear and filth, her hair still moonlit blonde, her eyes still midnight dark. She had grown tall, close to my unnatural height, and wore the shining armor of a paladin of the Order well and true. Her heart called for vengeance, and all we gave her were words to rest the only man she'd ever called father. "You return to the Lich King's side." She growled, and Anelas studied the floor beneath his feet.

"I do."

"Didn't wait long, did you?"

"Renata." Bayard hissed in response, and she glared at him. While he was the only one of them who claimed Baudoin's blood, he had always been a mama's boy, bound to me by the legacy of my line that we had both shared. Only I understood what he knew, what he saw. The Kirin-Tor came close, but even they only made educated guesses. He shared my love for the family estates which were his, while his brother's legacy had been that of the Menethil line, Lordaeron and her throne. Bayard was truly mine, while the two others had found easier paths with their father, Renata especially. Baudoin had been filled with boundless patience, as unyielding as a mountain, just what his flighty and fickle daughter had required. She saw what must be, my return to Arthas, as a violation of my oaths to Baudoin that my marriage and family had been grounded on. A betrayal. I had spent most of my adulthood betraying one or the other of the men in my life, constantly in motion between Arthas and Baudoin. They had both understood, but the children did not see it as easily.

"You ask me to betray the Lich King?" I asked slowly, stepping away from Bayard's support.

"You let my father die."

I went cold. I was willing to accept my true sins, but that...was so untrue that I had no answer for it. "Renata...what?" I was usually quick to answer, nimble of tongue and mind, but that one caught me so unaware I didn't even know where to begin.

"You left him. Alone. And he was alive when you made it back to him...that's what the missive says..."

"I did not leave Baudoin alone." I hissed. He had held ground with ten times as many as I had been with. Ten times as many paladins of the Order, honored to face down the Legion behind Baudoin the Ironfist. It had not made sense to keep the two of us together. Both of us were battlehardened officers, capable of the tactical responses necessary to maximize the effect of those troops. And I could read Baudoin's thoughts from my position down the line, coordinate with him... I had felt him go down, and had fought back to his position, too late. "Renata, I am no paladin. I cannot heal. Yes, he lived still when I fought back to him, but..." There was nothing I could do.

"Renata. Stop this. Now." Bayard ground out the syllables. "You are angry. You are distraught. The only thing we have to bring us through this is that we are a family. Papa would have not wanted this..."

"She's just been waiting..."

There was truth in that, and I still had no answer. Arthas permitted me to stay as long as Baudoin lived. Baudoin was mortal, aging, and he had not been a young man when the call had come. I was locked at the age of my death, twenty one, unchanging, but Baudoin had lived every moment of his fifty five years. And many of those moments had been harsh, the days that aged a man beyond his years. He'd been healthy still, strong as a bull, or I would have never allowed him to leave Brill and come to the Order's call. "You do not understand, little girl. Life is simple for you, still...  
You make it sound as if I could turn away from Arthas, forget his words."

"Arthas will stand against the Legion." Anelas stated easily, and I eyed Arthas's son. He had more of his father in him than Bayard did, but still I had marked him as mine. Those eyes were all me. "Again, we find ourselves in the position of enemy of my enemy is my...well.. not enemy at this exact moment. Ren, as hard as it is to accept, this is how it has always been. Well before you were born, well before she found you and brought you to us, she was his. She would not have found you if she were not. A paladin of the Order would have never been where she was. Clarimonde of the Order, a paladin still, would have gone no farther than the lines held in Hillsbrad. Arthas sent her into Lordaeron. Mother, how long?"

Not long. I could deal with the minutiae of putting my husband to rest for only so long. My soul screamed for blood, and my blade screamed for souls. I would see Baudoin laid down properly, with all due pomp and circumstance... for myself. For his children. For his kingdom, and the Order. And then, I would return to Arthas's side, and do what I did best.

"My beloved." I sighed, smoothing back Baudoin's heavy comb of hair. It had been unadulterated and black on the day I had first seen him, he had been twenty three on that day, I had been a child, barely nineteen. It was silvered now; he'd been put through so much, and had remained true. "I wish..." I wished, what? That we had lived in simpler times? That went without saying. That I could have been a better wife? Also, that went without saying. "I love you, Baudoin. Uther..."

I felt a presence behind me, in the nave, and for one moment, I felt it was Uther. The whisper of a heavy cloak and the heavy stride of an armored man physically present dispelled that. Uther had never felt that ominously large, that sinister... "Arthas, my Prince."

"Clarimonde, my Consort."

"He's gone." Even now, standing in the Church at Lordaeron City, before his body, I couldn't get my mind around that idea. Baudoin, gone.

"Yes." I expected some comment about how transient that could be, but Arthas refrained. "He is gone, Clair. Gone to where you wished him to go. I mourn his loss with you."

I snapped my eyes up from Baudoin's still face, staring at Arthas. He was bareheaded, his fine argent hair falling over his shoulders, his eyes glowing blue. Nothing in his demeanor suggested he lied or plied me with irony, he seemed somber and quiet. "I shared you with the Ironfist." He stated slowly, carefully. "I allowed him to raise my son, and all of your children. If I had found him unworthy, I would have never entrusted him with those things so precious to me. I gave Anelas the blood to rule Lordaeron, but Baudoin was his father. I care for you, but Baudoin was your husband. I am not blind to this, Clarimonde. He did what I was unable to do, and I respect him for it."

"Hmm." I turned back to Baudoin, "You bring me word?"

"The army awaits its general."

Of course it did. It always did. And that general was me. I pulled my cloak around me tighter, the day was cold but it did not bother me. I had lived in Northrend, Lordaeron in winter was nothing, but I felt exposed. I lacked the knowledge that I had someone safe to run to, I had lost Uther and now Baudoin.

"You have not lost me." Arthas murmured slowly, "And as long as I stand, you always have a safe place to run to."

"Why are you here?" He rarely left Northrend anymore, unless something required his attention. Baudoin's death did not. We were perfectly capable of laying him to rest on our own... and I did not feel that Arthas wished to gloat over his death.

"I brought you gifts." He whispered, his breath cold on the nape of my neck. "You will take them, of course. Whether or not you choose to wear them now is entirely up to you."

"Which means they're not appropriate."

I felt the curve of his lips against my neck as he smiled, and my mind could paint his expression although I was turned away from him. The beautiful smile of my prince was long dead...if he was smiling, it was a dark joy. I half turned my head so that I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and I was correct. He was giving me the smile that I knew was only for me... for the others; a smile from him was death. But for me, no. His eyes glowed with lambent power, and his smile was the indulgence I was accustomed to. "Either completely inappropriate, Clair, or completely appropriate. That is also your choice, your decision. But take it as it is, a reminder that you bask in my favor. Wear it. Do not." He shrugged, his eyes straying from me to Baudoin's still form. Anger flashed in them, and he spun away from me, stalking towards the archway, his boots grinding against the blue and white stone floor. "They will pay, Clair." He ground the syllables out, the enclosure of the arch causing them to reverberate more than usual. "I swear." There was a flare from Frostmourne's eyes, bright in the darkness, and he was gone.

I raised my gaze from following his progress, my master, my lord, my prince... and blinked. Each of the stones enclosing the holes here were much the same, the names carved into them the names of history, those who had fallen in service to the Order, to the Light. Immediately beside the space for Baudoin was a stone that did not match, one I had seen way too many times. It had been carved with a dwarf's care and mastery, and I touched a finger to my own gravestone. It had rested in Northrend all of this time, and now, rested here. I turned to exit on Arthas's heels, dreading exactly what he considered both appropriate and inappropriate, and ran headlong into Renata.

"I felt..." She frowned, and I gazed at her. She had felt Arthas's coming, and passing, but his stance on her had been strictly hands off. All of my children, even his own by birth, were such.

"You felt Arthas. He is gone now." Her approach could have been why he had left so quickly, or he may have just been done. Either was viable.

She glared ice at me. "How dare he come here." She spat and I shrugged. Arthas went wherever he pleased. She was none to stop him, and I certainly was not as well. "Mama... I don't understand why."

"Neither do I." I sighed, resting a hand on her shoulder. I had never been as shining as those around me, but even their brightness had not pulled them through this intact. Arthas had still fallen. Uther. I had given up trying to find my way back, now my only way was forward... back to Arthas's side. "Ren. My little girl. No matter what happens, just remember, I love you. Your father loved you. Your brothers..."

"We're cursed! Damned! Mama..."

Perhaps we were, indeed. I stared at her steadily. "Yes, Ren?"

"What happens if... I am sent against you?"

I pondered the question. There was a time when that was inconceivable, but Tirion was gone... My eyes flicked to his stone, close to where Baudoin's would be fixed. Turalyon was not as canny as Tirion, not as accepting. Tirion would have made certain I never met one of my children on the field, his replacement would not. I tightened my grasp on her shoulder and peered into her eyes. "Run." I hissed, and they widened.

"Mama?"

"Run. You cannot stand against me. If the Order makes it seem as if you can, then they are fools. They tell you I will flee before your hold on the Light, and they are wrong." The Order had few I even contemplated as an equal, and she was hardly such. I had held back so many times when I had trained her, and I knew her measure. She was good, possibly as good as I had been as a paladin. But I was no longer one.

"Don't go. Deny his call."

"It's too late for that." I sighed, shaking my head and releasing her shoulder. "Renata, Arthas will allow me to not face you, if you allow me to not face you. You are not my equal. You are not my better." I don't want to kill you. Please, anything but that.

"I hold the Light within my soul..."

I paused in the archway, and touched the power within my soul. A breeze, unnatural, swirled my skirt and hair, and I felt the sudden flare of blue play across the runes chiseled into the hilt of the sword at my side. "It's not enough, Renata." I breathed, and stepped into the darkness.

I retired to my chambers here at Lordaeron, in my son's capital. Unlike my rooms at home, which would breathe of Baudoin's life and passing, these were fairly safe and neutral. He had been here, but he'd been in many places with me.

A chest rested on the floor, and I eyed it warily. Arthas's gifts could often be perverse, and were always lavish. He wished me to display the power and prestige he granted me, he wanted me to stand forward as his Consort, his General. I opened it, and sighed. Definitely.

"It's beautiful. Crafted only for you." His voice was almost wistful. If I just let go, I could...

"It is time to let go, Clarimonde. You know that, I do as well. I have kept my end of the bargain..."

He didn't say it, he didn't need to. He had kept his end of the bargain, and it was time for me to keep mine.


	3. Chapter 3

Renata's eyes widened in horror when she got her first good look at me, and vague alarm crossed Bayard's face. Anelas looked pained, and the three of them held a deep, sudden silence. "Do you really feel that is wise, my mother?" Bayard recovered first, his voice remarkably steady. "The Church..."

"Knows who and what I serve." And only having Arthas stand behind me would drive that point home harder than the gown and jewelry I wore would. Alone, the gown would have been appropriate, which I guessed was Arthas's least hope. Black, austere, relieved only by wide bands of bright silver embroidery with tiny pearls and the glitter of gems, it would cause no comment. I wore my station's diadem on my head, and it also could be overlooked. The belt, if it could be called such, no. Such a blatant piece of mastery work, it was comprised of four frost wyrm panels, their front claws grasping a link that was likewise gripped by the other. They were crafted from truesilver, jointed to where they moved with my movements, the tips of their skeletal tails just over the floor, and as wide as two of my hand widths at the top. As if that was not enough, each one occasionally shifted, a motion not tied to my movements. Their glowing sapphire eyes moved and focused... their tails swished. It reeked of magic. It reeked of favor. It reeked of power. And I loved it. Perhaps it was not the most respectful thing to wear today, but I was running out of time.

"Subtle. Very." Anelas sighed, shaking his head.

It snowed that day, the day we buried Baudoin. The sky poured down great, white flakes, the snowfall I had always loved as a child, and I stared into the lowering clouds. Why? Again, I was left, existing, and asking why. I had gotten no answers when I had realized I had lost Uther, and I was to get none today. Bayard stood at my right hand, gripping my fingers in his warm grasp. Anelas stood at my left, his grasp was not as tight as his younger brother's. Trailing was a silent Renata, all of her bluster blown away. Poor baby. While I had not cared about my father, Renata and I shared a bond... We had both had great adoptive fathers, and had both lost them.

I mounted the steps into the Cathedral, ignoring the stunned stares of many of the Order. It was amusing on some level how few of them had ever grasped that which was not hidden, that which was so obvious.

"Lady Clarimonde." Turalyon's gaze was dire, disapproving, but there was little new in that. He simply disapproved of me. He had when I had worn the garb of provincial Lordaeron nobility, fitting and suitable for a De Nemesio, for the king's mother. The two frost wyrms in front of my gown shifted to both stare at him, and his frown deepened. "Please accept the commiserations of the Order on this dark day. Your loss is ours as well."

"Thank you, Lord Turalyon." I managed, feeling the first tear escape custody and trickle down my cheek. His expression stuttered, faltered, his eyes narrowing as he stared at me. No, you fool, I am not faking... I had stood by Baudoin's side for years, I did not deserve this.

"Now is not the time, the place, for this...Turalyon." Anelas hissed, barely audible, his grip strengthening on my fingers.

"Your Majesty..." Snow had gathered in the Highlord of the Order's hair, he'd been waiting for some time. "I...mean the words. The Order mourns beside your family. Beside the sons, the daughter..." His eyes sought mine, "And indeed, the widow of the Ironfist. Long have you supported us, and we do not forget."

I felt sick beyond words, stunned and lost. I can't do this. I can't...

The cold around me deepened palpably, and Turalyon glanced around in concern. Before, the day had held the warmth that shed the deepest of snows, now Anelas's breath hung like a fog. As usual, mine did not. "You will." Arthas stated. "Stand as his wife. He deserves it. Be here as your children's mother. If you do not, you will sicken yourself over the weakness forever. And when this is done, I will come for you, and I will let you scream. I will let you cry yourself to sleep."

"Mama." Bayard's voice shook, and I raised my eyes to regard him.

"It's fine, Bay." I murmured, and his fingers grazed my cheek. "I will make it through."

And I did. I don't remember much it, blurred through mostly unshed tears, but I stood, resolute. I had each of my sons at my side, strong men of Lordaeron now, my gift, my penance for past crimes and yes, crimes I had not yet committed.

So many came. I had known that Baudoin touched lives other than my own, of course. He had been one of the few to survive the purge, retain his hold on the Light, and return to lead the Order afterwards. He had raised the King, stood for Lordaeron when Lordaeron itself had failed. He had earned his title of Ironfist, well and true.

"Clair." Jaina looked better than the last time I had seen her, the blood, sweat and smoke was gone from her, she wore spotless robes of the darkest violet. Her hair had paled as she had aged; it fell over her shoulder in a rope of gold braided with black silken ribbons. "My sister."

When I had become that, I couldn't say. But it was true. The words were meant to comfort me, I guessed, but they did the opposite. She was another I would fail...

"Never, Clair." she stated as if I had spoken the words, it was often easy to forget who and what she was. Like all of us, she had grown. Like all of us, I doubted if it were all for the better. We had been young once, innocent... Life, death, war and betrayal had stripped that away from us.

Her eyes fell on my younger son, puzzled and thoughtful. "Your path to the Light is not complete, Clarimonde de Nemesio..."

I recognized the tone and delivery, while Bayard may have given voice to the words, they were not his. The family gift spoke again, and I glared at him. He was welcome to it; it had brought me nothing but despair. "My life has little room for that anymore, Bayard." I snapped back, well aware that he could hear me. There was no more Light. Baudoin had been my last torch, and now he was gone...

Bayard wrinkled a lip in thought, still in fugue, and I stared at him. "No, Bay. Drop it and come back. Now is not the time. Here is not the place..." I snapped. He'd been with the Kirin Tor for three decades, they had promised me they'd teach him better than I could. I saw precious little of that teaching...

"No better time, no better place." He murmured, staring at the clouds above him. "Than at the end and the beginning."

Jaina sighed, and I suddenly had an all too strong grasp of just painfully annoying I had been. It was no wonder my parents had shown me the backs of their hand so often... Not that I would ever consider doing the same. Bayard was my baby, my child, loved and unbowed. Baudoin's son. Infinitely precious for that fact. "Bayard!" she hissed, snapping her fingers in front of his nose. He gave her a peeved look in response, then dropped his chin in thought.

"Yes, Lady Jaina. Not the time, not the place." He answered meekly, but he kept glancing at the clouds when her eyes left him. So, it was one of those, a vision that did not let go even after he'd been pulled back. I looked up myself, but saw only the turmoil of storm clouds. That path was closed to me now, as were so many others.

"This way, Mother." Anelas planted a wide, strong hand between my shoulder blades and maneuvered me away from his brother. I nodded, letting him lead me away from the tomb, and from Baudoin. Jaina paused, uncertain, and I reached out and took her hand, leading her with me.

"My sister." I breathed, and she nodded. She was one of my family, the one I constantly turned to when I needed help that no one else could give. And the times we'd needed that were too many to count.

Jaina and Bayard slept, as did Renata, when the moon broke out from behind its clouds and turned Lordaeron's night to a pale day. Anelas did not sleep, his eyes locked outside.

"It's late, Anelas." I pointed out the obvious. I did not usually sleep, I'd apparently done quite enough of that in the months I had rested dead, but Anelas was mortal, living. He needed his rest.

"I know." He said, and I peered out beyond his shoulder. All I saw was the courtyard, nothing out of order, nothing to require such concentration. I felt nothing, as well, and trusted that more than I did my eyes. "Mother... Mama..."

I tilted my head to stare at him. As he'd aged, been forced into the footsteps of Lordaeron's king, he'd grown distant and formal. To return to calling me that meant this conversation was deeper than the multitude of meaningless ones we'd inflicted on each other lately in the guise of family civility. "Kieran." The name he'd had before he was Anelas, crown prince of Lordaeron, as accepted by the Wrynn family of Stormwind and the Order. The name he'd had when he was still only mine...

"Do you love my father?"

I pulled back from him, startled by the question. It was not in the past tense, he was not asking if I had loved his father when he came to be, a question he had indeed asked me before. That was an easy answer; of course I had loved Arthas that autumn... Few had not. But now... and to ask this so soon on the heels of Baudoin's death...

"Kieran?"

"I'm sorry, Mama, if this comes too soon, but we're running out of time. I want to know this while I still can. You'll be leaving, and there will be no asking after that."

"Do I still love Arthas now?" I repeated, playing to give myself more time. This was not a question I had expected to hear from him. Jaina, yes. Perhaps even Bayard, cursed with my line's incessant curiosity, but Anelas had seemed so removed from the one pesky little fact of his life. Forget that he bore the family name of Menethil, forget the fact that he looked enough like Arthas had to be mistaken for him; Anelas had never let that rise beyond him. I studied him, seeing what Arthas would have looked like had he not fallen that terrible season. "Kier, please. You don't believe as Renata seems to...?"

He frowned, glaring out of the window at the hapless courtyard. "No, Mama. I know you loved Baudoin. That was obvious to all of us, even Renata. If you hadn't, you would have left him a long time ago. You did right, and Arthas allowed you to. No, what I want to know is do you love my father? Right now?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat. So many had asked, either straight to my face, or by less obvious ways, if I loved Baudoin. That was an easy question to answer, it had always been definite. Even as he had aged, he had remained the same to me. My Baudoin. My beacon. But none had asked if I loved Arthas, not in decades. They had asked if I still served him, yes, but never how I felt of him.

I bowed my head, but Anelas did not speak. He was not going to allow me out of this by changing the subject. "I... do, Kier." I finally managed. "I have from the first moment I saw him. Things were very complicated..." He was still silent, and I sighed. Here, now, in this bashful quiet, one of them was finally asking, finally pushing. Of course it would be Anelas, Arthas's born son, to do it. "He was beautiful, Kier. Just like you are. When he smiled at me, it was like the world ended." How to express a child's infatuation to a man who had been an adult, a king, for two decades now? It had seemed so harmless then, it should have been harmless. The most wrong we should have done was this man right here, this silent man staring outside, our son. So many had done the same, played as children, borne the bastards, and carried on. "Uther..."

His violet eyes flicked to me, and I read disapproval in his gaze. "Uther is dead, Mama. I don't want to know what he thought. I don't want to know what my grandfather thought. I don't want to know what your father, or Baudoin thought. I want to know if you still love my father. Now. This night."

"I do. Damn him, damn me, I do." I hissed, and Anelas only nodded unsurprised.

"Thank you, Mama." He breathed, folding me into his embrace. He had not touched me in years, and I first stiffened, then calmed. He lived so strongly still, his heart was ox strong under my ear. "I can let you go if that is how it is..."

The temperature plummeted in the room, and Anelas froze. I could feel him shift his head, his lashes had tickled the curve of my neck, and now I felt the prickle of his chin there instead. I knew without looking who had entered the room.

"Anelas, my son."

The last time I was certain that the two of them had been in the same room together had been a lifetime ago, the days before ruin had come. Then, Arthas had been just that, Arthas Menethil, paladin of the Order, Crown Prince of Lordaeron. He'd carried Anelas on his shoulders, while I had cradled a newborn Bayard in my arms. Those were the memories of a different person, and still they ached.

Anelas released me and took a step to place me beside him as he faced his father. `They faced each other for a long, charged moment, and I watched Arthas warily. Please don't... If this went badly, I had no right response. Either would kill me. Protect Anelas and go against Arthas. Stand by and do nothing while Anelas fell.

"Arthas, my father." That sounded horribly wrong, and I flinched. I'd always heard Anelas call Baudoin that.

"I've come for my Consort." Again, Arthas came bareheaded, standing shoulders above his only born child. Anelas was not a large man, his mother had been slight and frail, and Arthas had not been massively imposing himself when we had conceived this child. Now I stood almost as tall as the Ironfist had, and Arthas loomed over me.

"I know." Anelas stated. "And you will unleash her against the Legion."

"I will unleash her against whomever I please." A slight smile crossed Arthas's face, and I stilled, measuring him. I disliked it when he smiled... His glance flicked towards me as he felt the change, and he raised a brow at me, the smile widening. "I will not harm him, Clarimonde. He is yours. Mine. Ours." He extended his hand to me. "But it is time to go."

I returned to Icecrown, one step behind Arthas, on his right side. I feared that it would be harder to return, after all the time I'd spent away, but as usual, I was wrong. It was easier. With Baudoin's death, and my children's growth into adulthood, I felt no call to return to Lordaeron. Most of those who had spoken against me in the beginning had died in Sylvanas's assault on the Glacier, and I stood above the rest as untouchable. I was Arthas's chosen, his consort, his general, and he had been quite diligent in making certain that those I would command, those who still had minds to think, knew that. And I threw myself into the only thing which counted, taking as much blood for Baudoin's life as I could. And again, I was good. I was better than good. Losing the last vestige of the ties which had held me away from Arthas allowed me to immerse myself in that true calling, the first amongst my prince's servants. I was Clarimonde De Nemesio, Consort General of the Lich King, and I loved every moment of it. But, of course, even that dark joy was fleeting...

I was aware that the war was going badly, even though it had not touched me yet. The wonder of commanding undead forces is that when they fell, I just raised them again. Death was an abstract that I was more than willing to let go of. Lordaeron was an abstract that was too easy to let go of. Friends, family, they faded behind the ceaseless gluttony and carnage of my existence. The more I fed, the stronger I became so that I could feed again... a ceaseless cycle of destruction. I wish I could say I wanted to stop, to slow, but I'd be lying. I killed, I served, and I basked in the glory of Arthas's favor, letting go of everything I had once been. When I had clung to myself, I had felt Uther's attention, Uther's love, but no longer.

"My Consort."

I paused, glancing around. This area was barren without my attentions, too close to one of the Legion's gates. I had not made the ground red, lifeless, nor chased the blue from the sky, but my passing did freeze the crystals of sand together in my wake, and what little struggled to live died if I stepped over it.

"My king?" I queried the very air, chilled by my presence.

"Jaina begs an audience with me."

Fascinating. I traveled this way alone, it made killing quicker and easier, so there was no one to look askance at me when I stopped and began speaking. Not that any would, all knew who I spoke to. I considered his words slowly. Jaina had not acknowledged Arthas's existence since... well, possibly Stratholme. That was the last time I knew they'd seen each other. "The Kirin Tor are powerful." I hedged, pondering. The Kirin Tor were holding a line far south of my current position, in conjunction with the Order. Both sides had something precious to me, nothing I wished disturbed.

"I do not trust her."

Nor should he. Jaina had made it perfectly clear, to me, at least, that she considered her Arthas dead and gone. She'd have few compunctions about destroying him now.

"See what she wants."

So that's what it was. Send me instead. "Jaina will consider me as dead and gone as she considers you, my master." I noted aloud. I had no delusions about that. Just as he had, I had let go of myself.

"Possibly. But Bayard, not so easily. And if you are correct, then I shall bring vengeance to her that she cannot conceive of."

"Lovely. But I'd still be destroyed."

"As more than a small part of you desires."

True enough. I turned towards where I sensed Bayard. If Jaina was desperate enough to call Arthas, then something required my attention. I called my dreadcharger and mounted up, driving in that direction.


	4. Chapter 4

They were camped on a rocky rise, and saw me coming far away. "Halt!" The bellow came down, and sensed the focus of multiple targets upon me. "Who goes?"

I wrinkled my nose beneath my cowl. They had seen me coming a mile away. I rode a dreadcharger. I was garbed in sinister black and silver armor. I wore silver furs in a desert, my passing caused a chill fog and yet, they still asked that inane question. I studied the paladin who had sounded the call, a hardened veteran, I should be able to put a name to him and if I struggled to, I might be able to. "I am Clarimonde De Nemesio..."

Well controlled dismay chased across his face at that, then his face steadied."And Jaina of the Kirin Tor has called my master. I come in his place."

"Lady Jaina called...?"

When asked like that, it seemed rather absurd, and I wondered briefly if Arthas had sent me for another reason altogether. If I was attacked by this rather lovely example of older paladin, and his cohorts, I would fight. They would die... More the pity. My mind wandered, imagining things I simply did not have time for.

"We need to find you a pet for that, my dear. Obviously not a paladin, but there are many finely visaged young men who would sell their souls to you. You'd have to stray from your amazing preference for members of the Order, but it could be arranged..."

"I'm busy." I muttered, and apparently I muttered it aloud. The paladin's concern deepened visibly now that I was talking to myself.

"I have this from here, Ahndru." Jaina's weary voice broke through the tension, and I glanced in her direction. I had seen her look much, much better. And rarely had I seen her look worse. "Clair. You came." She sighed, her eyes filled with regret.

"Jaina, my sister." I offered back, and the paladin beside her hissed, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword. My eyes fell on him, and I could feel him gird his soul to stand immobile, while Jaina merely loosed a dry chuckle.

"Clarimonde, my sister." She replied agreeably. "I am glad that you still recall that. You've let yourself go, and I was afraid you would forget. So, the Lich King sends his consort in answer to my plea... Better an answer than I expected, truly. You have been avoiding us, we have been avoiding you."

"Seemed the wiser course of action." I dismissed the charger, landing gracefully on my feet before her. "I am sent against the Legion, not the Kirin Tor, not the Order." She was here with fewer people than she ought to be, and there was a desperation palpable in the air even without any senses heightened by the power flowing through me. "Things go ill here?"

"We will not stand without your help, Clair. We will lose it all..."

And that was unacceptable. I had not died to protect this to watch the Legion tear it apart. If anyone was to have it, it would be Arthas. Demons, no. I didn't care that they were the ones ultimately responsible for my creation, or perhaps, in some dark corner of my soul I did, and I blamed them. Either way, I would not fall from my perch as Consort General to become some nothing in a demon horde. I would not stand by and watch them destroy my children. Jaina. No. I would take the gifts they had given me to destroy them, to drive them back. And Arthas would not subjugate himself to them again, not fall back into line.

"Stand beside her, for now. But watch your back. Your appearance does not please her. And it will not please Bayard, or Turalyon. It may be enough to end their silences."

I sighed, my eyes drawn to the far horizon. Every time I slipped, I changed. It went without saying that I had done it again, for I had slipped so far this time. "Point me at them, Jaina, and I will feast upon their blood. Their souls. I will rain chaos from the skies."

She sputtered amusement, ignoring the silent paladin. "Unfortunately, Clair, I need you to think, not feed. And I need you to play nice with Turalyon..."

I grinned. "I'll play nice with Turalyon if he plays nice with me..."

"He's taken." she stated, an edge of humor still clinging to her voice. "You'll have to find another, you lousy poacher. I'm sure there are some fools in the Kirin Tor idiotic enough to try."

"Certainly."

I ignored Arthas's explicit blessings in that, and focused on the other thread. "Baudoin was well and truly mine." I complained, "I poached from no one. Arthas came sniffing around me..."

"I know. But that is long past, Clair. I will not condemn the actions which gave Lordaeron Anelas as King. He gave them hope when there was little to be found, and I believe that even had Arthas not fallen, we'd still be pretty much where we are now. If it wasn't him, the Lich King would have called another. It only hurts us in that it was someone close to us. Someone we loved..." Her blue eyes locked the darkness under my cowl. "Someone close enough to take one of us with him. But come, Turalyon is this way..." As if I could not feel the Highlord of the Order without being shown the way.

His brows jumped when he saw me, and his eyes went to Jaina standing beside me. "Lady Proudmoore?" He queried, standing. "Lady...De Nemesio?"

"I asked Arthas if he'd meet. He sent Clair as his answer."

"Forgive me, Lady Proudmoore, but the Legion made the Scourge. The Lich King is one of the Legion's works. Therefore..." He stared at me, "Clarimonde is one of the Legion's works."

That was unfortunately true. I glanced at Jaina and shrugged. "He doesn't like me." I noted, lightening my voice. Turalyon stared at me for a long, long moment, silence spreading.

"If you truly believe that, Lady De Nemesio, then you are not nearly as astute as I've been led to believe." He sighed, sitting back on the barrel he'd been using as a chair and studying the maps before him again. "One of these days, you may even understand how I, how the Order, views you." He frowned mutinously at the information. "You think we are fools, all. You think we are blind, all. You are one of the greatest sources of hope we have, and one of our greatest failures. You serve the Lich King blindly now, because you could not help but do it. But before that, you gave Lordaeron one of the greatest kings she has ever known. You gave the Kirin Tor one of their greatest archmages. You gave your Order Renata. You held on as long as you could, and gave humanity three of our greatest hopes for the future. I do not dislike you, Clarimonde. I love you as one of my sisters, and I pray for you. If we could save you, we would."

"I don't need saving." Even upside down, the tactical map he studied looked dire. Frost formed upon the edge of the table when I touched it, and he frowned at me. "This is accurate?" I demanded, leaning in closer. Any joy I had from teasing him, taunting him, was gone. If this was indeed accurate, then I understood exactly why Jaina had called. She'd deal with anyone right about now.

"It is."

"Damn." I dismissed the ominous, bulky armor I wore, and if possible, the two of them gave me an odder reaction when I appeared in a gown. "It's not good."

"No." Turalyon shook his head slowly. "It's not good, daughter of Uther."

"The Legion must be held here, at the Gates. As far from Northrend as possible."

I didn't dignify that with a response. Holding here, in this already devastated area, was the only viable option. Holding far from Northrend, far from Stormwind, far from Lordaeron, was the only way to do this. "What is at our disposal?"

Jaina's face told me all, but I needed to see anyway. They had been mauled, decimated, and I pondered. "How far are you willing to go, my sister?" I asked. So many had died... and the dead were my stock in trade.

"They died protecting Azeroth. I believe they would want to keep protecting Azeroth in death." She murmured, avoiding Turalyon's eyes. It was unnecessary, he was avoiding hers. So, they were in agreement. Good. That made this so much easier.

"You do this, and you will become a target."

If I didn't... Jaina, Bayard, Renata would fall. And when they did, Azeroth would. And then, Northrend. "It is our only option, my master."

"True. Perhaps it is time to send someone a little more...disposable...into this."

I frowned. While I enjoyed being labeled not as disposable as another, I disliked the idea that he was contemplating giving Jaina, and by extension, Bayard, less than the best. "I am your General as well as your Consort, my King."

"I know. You will stand there?"

"Of course, my king..."

"Foolish, brave Clarimonde. Very well, then. Stand there, with my blessings."

I nodded sharply, striding out from beneath the flap and surveying my surroundings. It was time to start this for real...

So many had died, so many waited. I held out my hand, heavy with rings, towards the empty land. It was then that I noticed my nails had thickened, sharpened, and that the runes once barely visible beneath my flesh stood out around my wrists in stark, bruised relief. What had I done to myself...?

"Rise!" I snarled into the fitful wind. And rise they did.

This worked for awhile, long enough to soothe my soul and pride. But even the dead have their limits, and we reached that limit. And yes, Arthas was correct, I became that target. Again, things happened so damn quickly that they blurred in my mind. There was something, it was big, mean, powerful, and had a laugh that grated on my nerves, and then I was down. Again.

I woke, cold. There was nothing new in that. I peeled my eyes open to the faint light of dawn in a tent, and stared at the forming icicles on the ceiling above me. A lich floated beside my cot, its eyes flashing when it locked glances with me. "Good morning, mistress." It bade, before turning its attention back to its task. I craned my head to watch, and was not surprised that the task at hand was repairing me. That became less and less easy the longer I survived dead. Before, I could, and any of the paladins I chose to surround myself with could heal me. Soon after my death, an average necromancer could repair me. Now, no. Now I required the attentions of necromancers on the level of the Nerubian lords, or Arthas's liches. "Not much longer now." It breathed with the voice of a northern wind, and I closed my eyes. When did this end?

"I am here because my aid was requested, Turalyon." If the lich had the voice of a northern wind, then Arthas bore the tones of the blizzards in the Dragonblight. "You cannot expect to ask me for my aid, which I give, and have me not arrive when my Consort falls. I have invested too much in her to let her go this easily. Since the Kirin Tor is incapable of adequately caring for her when she is downed, then obviously I must supply the support she requires."

There was a spreading silence, then Arthas chuckled. "Exactly." There was the fleeting touch of his fingertips across my brow, and I slipped further away, deeper into sleep. "Rest for now, Clair. I will need you, soon."

He was still close when I woke again, and I was well enough to stand. The lich was not within the tent anymore, and I stepped outside into a blistering heat. Arthas stood, motionless, in the sparse shadow of a rock outcropping, fully armored, Frostmourne slung at his side.

I approached him openly, and he shifted ever so slightly, a bare motion to prove he was no statue, his faceplate tilting towards me. "My king." I breathed. "My apologies..." He shouldn't be here. I should have been able to handle this on my own...

"The Legion is not a force to underestimate. You have put the fear of the Lich King into a great many during your sojourn here." His glowing blue eyes fell over the encampment, and I knew he included the Kirin Tor and the Order in that.

"While placing the fear of my master in the hearts of the Kirin Tor is indeed a worthy endeavor, it doesn't help with the root problem..." I had played every trick I had, and my repertoire was emptied. He glanced at me, and I dropped my eyes in defeat. "I don't know what to do now, my master. I have failed..." How, I wasn't certain... I had gone into battle with his fullest blessings, his fullest support, and still, I had failed him.

"Of all those who serve me, you have done so the truest, Clarimonde." He breathed, "And I will never forget that, come what may." He sighed, shifted. "Options, my General?"

I bit my lip in response. Even with him here, on the ground, those options were few and I liked none of them. "Cannot stand here." I forced the words out. "And pulling back is suicide. Retreating is suicide. I... do not see the answer, my King." I watched him hopefully. Perhaps he could see what was obscured to me; perhaps there was something I was missing.

"And as long as that gate stands open, we are...?"

I glanced in the direction his eyes flicked towards, the opened gates, the source of the Legion reinforcements. "Going to lose this." And everything else.

"What would you sacrifice to stop that?" He asked, and I bristled at the gentle reason of his words. That was never a good tone. It was worse than when he laughed, this meant he was plotting, and for the life of me, I couldn't comprehend just what he was considering. I forced that rising dread from my heart, and contemplated his question at its worth. What would I sacrifice to protect my children? To protect that which I, which they, had struggled to rebuild? The estates? Lordaeron, proud once more? The Order, standing in the open again? What would I sacrifice to protect Arthas?

"My heart. My soul. My very existence." I stated, and he nodded, as if that was the very answer he'd been expecting.

I do not lose, Clair." He growled, and I flinched. Of course he didn't. Sacrifice whatever it took, but he did not lose. Stratholme, Lordaeron, had all been negotiable. His good name, the trust of his people, his calling, his soul...all sacrificed so that he could stand victorious against his Scourge masters. My life, my calling, my soul, gone the same. All so that Arthas did not lose. I knew all too well what he was willing to sacrifice for it.

"I know, my master." I managed through numbed lips. Unlike him, I was not quite so ready to sacrifice all to see him victorious. I dreaded to know what he had in mind, now.

"Clarimonde De Nemesio." He rolled the entirety of my given name off of his tongue, and I frowned. I expected all sorts of dire words to fall after that, but nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for his next words. "Marry me."

"What?" I hissed, a cascade of tiny snow crystals forming and falling before me. "Arthas, what?" Surely I had misheard him; surely that was my mind playing tricks...

"Marry me." I'd heard it twice, now, and he still sounded serious. He still felt serious. No, more than serious. "Here. Now. The Order has priests to make it true."

Priests? I stared at him in unmitigated horror. Even with Baudoin, it had taken years before I'd come before a priest and an altar. Why this? Why now? No priest worth their calling would agree to bless the Lich King and his servant. It was foolishness. "My king... my master..." I still felt the weight of his undivided attention, which emboldened me to take the next step, "Arthas?"

"You and I must take that gate." His empty faceplate turned in its direction. "There is only one way, Clair. And I will not go alone. I ask you to go with me. I should have given you this grace years ago."

Jaina looked bemused and quite amused when informed why she had been dragged out of her cot to witness this. Bayard stood, tall, proud, formal, at her side, and absolutely nothing in his demeanor or bearing suggested he found anything at all amiss with it. He had been found dressed in his robes of station this morning, as if he woke every day on the fringe of a battlefield and put on his best. For just a moment, I wondered what the voices had told him, and then I let that go. Again, he was welcome to it. He extended his hand to Arthas, who regarded him for a long moment before he dropped something into it, somethings which fell with a metallic chime.

The priest looked between us all as if he was waiting for someone to finally start laughing, and I agreed with him, but the two most knowledgeable about what was going on, Arthas and Bayard, remained steady. After a long enough pause to allow sanity to prevail, he shrugged, and cleared his throat. I bowed my head, listening to the time honored flow of his words... I'd answered them once before, in the great Chapel of Lordaeron, pledging myself to Baudoin. And now, I answered them again...

"Do you..." The priest's doubts raised again, and I felt for him. "Arthas, take this woman, Clarimonde..."

"I do." His voice was deep, a shadow of darkness, and my younger son nodded in agreement in spite of how dire that acceptance sounded.

"Do you, Clarimonde, take this man Arthas..."

"I...do, yes." Why? What? Was I the only one left out of this? No, even Jaina looked blankly confused, her eyes bouncing from me to Arthas to the priest, and finally to Bayard.

"The rings?" The priest asked, and Bayard nodded. Of course there would be rings, another reason for Arthas to shower me with luxury. He reveled in and excelled at that. Bayard produced a ring, and held it up to the first light of dawn, before offering it to Arthas.

"Thank you." It had been warmed to Bayard's body heat, and bound my finger tightly when Arthas slipped it on. He left the other in my grasp, and I lifted it to study it.

"Clair. I should have done this years ago. You should always have been my queen. Mother of my heir. My consort." Arthas rested his hand on my shoulder, and Jaina's expression ran from bemusement to measurement, her eyes dark and level. Bayard still looked completely fine. "Place the ring on my finger. Bind me to you as I have always bound you to me. We stand, together, here at the end."

There was the rush of an all too familiar distancing, the touch of a family gift carried still dormant within me. While before, I had always heard the prophecies come in a voice that was mine, but wasn't, this time I heard it in Bayard's voice, which wasn't. "The end is the beginning. No better time, no better place, than at the end which is the beginning..."

I slid the band, adorned with panels of apples and pears spaced with the royal seal of Lordaeron upon Arthas's finger. He studied it for a long moment before nodding. "Man and wife..." he echoed the priest's final words, and I felt the bond he was pushing for take suddenly. Jaina's brows jumped for her hairline, her stare contemplative, her lips moving as she murmured to herself.

"Clarimonde Menethil."

I had to admit, it did indeed possess a certain ring. And, as sad as it was, I felt triumph, victory, favor. What an idiot I was. So undeserving. I had held Baudoin's heart. I had worn Baudoin's ring. I had birthed Baudoin's son, and still...

"You held Arthas's heart, longer." A calm, reasonable voice noted slowly from behind me. "You wore his ring longer than you wore my father's, just on a different finger. You birthed Arthas's son, first."

"It's not that simple, Bayard."

"Here, at the beginning, is not the time to look back, my mother." He grasped my shoulders, turning me to face him. "Now is the last time you want to second guess that which must be. My father is gone. You let him go, now let him be gone."

"This is not a beginning, Bay. It's an ending..."

He raised steady brandy eyes to mine, and then smiled. "Mama. Every new beginning starts with an ending. I love you. And I will see you later. Congratulations on your wedding day, and here..." He pressed a package into my hands and nodded, his eyes far away, locked on the gate well behind me. He nodded, pressed a kiss to my cheek, smiled, and strode away, trailing Jaina as usual.

"Strange, fey man." Arthas breathed. "So much like you, for all that he is his father's image again."

"No, I made him thin." Baudoin had hardly been light, but Bayard was slender, graceful. He definitely did not possess the combat presence that had given his sire the label Ironfist, but he still seethed with an inner power. He was a true De Nemesio more.

"Bah. Size has nothing to do with power..."

I glanced over, and up, at him. Once the giggle had started, it was too much to hold, and I erupted into laughter. I had been short before my death, but now I stood a good eighteen hands tall. Arthas towered over me, at least twenty five hands. He most certainly had not been that before. He'd been a large young man, but not this. He scrutinized me for a long, silent moment, then shrugged, the motion a shadow of his former self. "But it looks good." He murmured softly, the words meant for only me. "Say your goodbyes, Clair. We run out of time." He turned, and strode back towards his overlook, his attention focused far away.

Say my goodbyes. To whom? Bayard? I glanced at him, but he had turned away from me. He'd already said his goodbyes, and I knew that. Jaina... much as I wanted to, something warned me away from it. She had not gotten where she was by letting things happen around her, she was the sort to try to change them. And this must not change. Everything I grasped told me that. It was amusing, that at the end, the only one left was Arthas himself. He said nothing when I returned to his side, and for a long moment I wondered if he even sensed my proximity...

"Of course I know you are there, my wife." He murmured, and I blinked. That sounded so wrong, for too many years I'd heard that in Baudoin's voice, said from Baudoin's heart. "No one left?"

"Bayard understands already..." I began.

"And Jaina would try to stop us."

"Yes."

"So many love you, and at the end, there is only me." He snorted, "So be it, then. Stand with me." And so I did, as silent and ominous as he was, watched by the curious and the wary.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the dark of third watch when he finally shifted, and stepped into motion. By now, most of the camp slept, only the watch noted our passage and they called no warning. No reason to, since we were moving away from the encampment they guarded. I pulled even with Arthas on the abutment overlooking the portal, and frowned. So many. There were so damned many... and broadly visible, so bright as if I could reach out and touch it, the portal. So close, so far away.

"Do not fear." Arthas stated slowly. "My Clair. I ask that of you, one last time."

Do not fear. That should have been a laughable idea. I had never been foolhardily brave, self preservation ranked high upon my list, but oddly, I did not fear. I merely felt a deep resignation, as if it was already over and I was just left watching it play out to its only ending. "I do not." I murmured, and he nodded.

"Do you know what must be done?" He asked, his gaze still motionless upon the portal before him. At his own words, he drew Frostmourne, his most valued... I was loathe to call it a possession, for it was so much more... and balanced the sword in his hand. I mirrored the motion, pulling my own runeblade. It remained silent, distant. It knew. I knew. Arthas knew.

"I do." I sounded so...normal. How? How did he sound so normal?

"Then we do this." He growled, summoning his dreadcharger. "Give them no chance, if we prepare, then we give them warning to prepare. Go...with my blessings, Clair."

I nodded, summoning mine as well. I mounted, and rode the width of the portal away from Arthas, far on his left hand side. I didn't need to look at him for direction; I felt the heartbeat when he wanted me to charge. And charge I did, mirrored by Arthas every step of the way. It was glorious. It was wonderful. I rode to my death as a complete entity for the first time in a long time, none of my pieces opposed to the others. I was Clarimonde, daughter of Uther, beloved of Baudoin, champion of the Silver Hand, defender of Lordaeron, scion of eight generations of service to that kingdom... And I was Clarimonde, Consort General of the Lich King. I was whole, I was pure, I was without doubt. And then, it was over.

I awoke, warm. It was that sort of warm that came paradoxically only when it was cold and one was rebelliously well protected against the cold. It was that cuddled, snuggled warmth that came on cold days. I was curled on my side, and contributing to more than his fair share of the warmth within my cocoon was a man nestled beside me. He slept so close behind me that there was no room to spare, his open right hand cradling my belly, his face buried in the hair at the nape of my neck. He felt delightful. He even smelled delightful. What was not so delightful was that I could not place a name to him, or even really a face to him. Somehow, I had found my way into a bedroll with a man I didn't know. But I did know... I should know...

I turned over to face him, still within his grasp... And I definitely wanted to know. He was beautiful. He opened puzzled, sleepy, sea green eyes to gaze at me, and my heart rejoiced. I knew this man, and seeing this was... like seeing the lost returned. "Good morning, beautiful." He offered, and there was some relief in the noble edge of his voice. He wasn't common. I had made a mistake, certainly, but not a dire mistake.

"Good...morning." Why couldn't I place him? Why couldn't I remember? I was not known for forgetfulness, and even if I were, this was a little much to forget.

"Errr..." He whispered, his hand now on the rise of my hip instead of slung comfortably across my belly. "I have a truly stupid question."

That made two of us. I wrinkled my nose at him, fighting to maintain a measure of composure. "What?" I demanded, amazed he admitted to only one.

"What's...your name? I..." He frowned stormily, "Can't seem to call it. I know it. I know you well. This is not the first time I've woken like this, next to you, but I can't..."

The worst thing about that question was that, quite bluntly, neither could I. I could not remember my own name, much less his. "I...don't remember. Nor do I remember...yours." By the sudden, shocked expression on his face, neither did he. He considered that for a long moment, then nodded.

"So. You don't remember who you are, and I do not remember who I am. But we both agree that this..." His fingers tightened on my hip, "Is not a first." I nodded slowly. Definitely not a first. I had woken up like this many times before, and presumably then, I knew who I was and knew who he was. I understood exactly what he was getting at. If it was fine then, then there was no panicking this morning. At least over that. There seemed to be other things to panic over, beginning with...

"Where are we?" Since there seemed to be no answer to who we were yet.

"Another good question." He muttered, sliding out from the bedroll. His departure left a blast of cold air, and I shuddered. It was definitely cold out there, and I was certain I was not dressed for it. Neither was he, and it was almost painful to watch him stand tall in the morning's pale light. Almost, for that was a fine view indeed... He was built like a warrior, broad of shoulder and narrow through his hips, and he moved like one as well. While he was definitely pretty, this was no pretty boy. "And we have a cold camp." He sighed, "Some idiot left the fire to die."

I refrained from the obvious, if there was just the two of us...no... I looked again. The encampment was for three. Two, myself and the strange man in my bedroll, had the eastern part of the camp, and it had been put together with a fair amount of experience and knowhow. The other side had been pitched by a rank amateur... how I knew it, I was uncertain. "Stay until I find your clothes." He ordered, and I was more than happy to let him freeze in my stead.

"I'm not naked." I pointed out, and he chuckled. No, not quite, but I might as well be. I hadn't gotten a good look at what I was wearing, but there wasn't much to it. At least he was wearing a shirt and thin breeches, I was fairly certain I was just in my chemise.

He crossed the encampment, grasping the straps of one of the two battered rucksacks leaning against the weathered stump of a tree. "Yours." He stated without question, pushing the first he had come to over to me. "Mine." He noted equally as certain, picking the other up. I took the one he had sent me, running fingers over its latch. Yes, mine. I didn't know how, but it was mine. It looked pretty much the same as his, but this was mine and had been mine for a very long time. I opened it, and the first thing I came to was a merrily wrapped package, a gift, crammed without care into the top of the ruck. I touched the jauntily tied white silk bow, frowning. When...where...why? And why had I not opened it upon receipt? Was it for me? From me?

I opened it, and the paper fell away from a single sheet of vellum resting upon dark mulberry wool. "Congratulations upon this blessed day, may the two of you know happiness. May you know a long and durable marriage. May you stand together come what may. All my love, B d N."

Marriage? I glanced at my left hand holding the wrapping paper open. Yes, it did indeed bear a ring, and I lifted the hand to take a look at it in the spreading reddish light. "Um." I stuttered, and the man lifted his head.

"Yes?" He demanded, pausing in his survey of his belongings.

"Are you wearing a ring? A...wedding...ring?" Somehow, it seemed all too possible that I was married, and not to him. Was I truly that sort of woman?

I could not see his face, turned away from me as he was, but I knew he looked down. "I am, indeed." He stated. "You?"

"Yes."

"With apples, pears, and some... sort of letter?"

That was as fine as description of it as I could come up with myself. The apples were colored with red gold, the pears with yellow gold, and inter-spaced between them, a letter, some cross between an L and a P, enameled in blue. "Yes."

"Fascinating." He stated, pulling a heavier wool tunic over his head and tying it closely around him. A sturdier pair of breeches followed, over the thin ones he had been sleeping in, heavy socks and a pair of riding boots, before he came back to me. "Let me see." I did, and he gracefully took my hand in his own calloused fingers. Those were sword calluses, not work calluses, and his nails were smooth, clean and short. Definitely nobility. "Yes, they match. I would guess that means... you are my wife?"

"I...guess so." I held out the paper from the gift, and he scanned it quickly, his puzzled glance falling to the newly opened bundle in my lap.

"We are...newlyweds? Out in the middle of nowhere, alone? And, I must admit, the initials signing this mean nothing to me."

I shrugged. They meant nothing to me, and obviously the gift was mine. If they were supposed to mean anything, they should have meant it to me. There were four dresses in the bundle, each lovely, but too nice for an encampment. And bundled in them, a bag which clinked with a metallic ring when I dropped it. It contained coinage, a fair amount of it...

"Well, we have money at least." I noted, and a wry smile twisted his narrow lips.

"I was wondering that myself. We seem to have lost important things such as our very names, why would we keep our finances about us? "

"True enough." Thankfully, under the bundle, were other clothes, my sized, and several which were not gowns. He discreetly turned his head when I struggled to climb into them, more worried about the touch of the cold to my skin than the weight of his eyes. I had the odd feeling he'd already seen all I had to offer anyways. Of course, if we were indeed wed, that was his right. "So, what now?" I asked, coming to his side as he surveyed the disaster of the one time camp fire. Whoever had done this was abysmally bad at it, and I was certain it was not my doing.

"Breakfast." He stated with a fleeting, lovely smile, and my heart melted. Somehow, that look was infinitely precious, something I had thought lost, and it was not. I felt my lower lip tremble, and knew I was doomed. "Hey." He breathed, "Don't cry. What...have I done? Damn, if I knew the answer to that, we'd be better off. Shush..." He pulled me close, my cheek against his chest, burying my slightness in his arms. He was so alive, so warm, he smelled so good...

"Good morning, children." That was a voice I was certain I had never heard in my life. There was nothing at all familiar about it, unlike so many things here which were just out of a fingertip's reach.

"Who the hell are you?" I could see nothing, but my apparent spouse was willing to ask the only question which needed to be asked.

"Ah. Yes. My name is Mathys. Father Mathys. The pair of you were very deeply asleep when I came across you both yesterday. Decided to let you sleep it off, whatever it was. Reeks of magic, it does, but you both seemed to be well. Although now your wife doesn't seem to be as well as she did..."

"She's fine. Where is here?"

"You don't know where you are? This is Brightwood, just outside of the darkened woods..." My mind was decidedly unhelpful with minor things like my name, the name of my lovely spouse, but it knew exactly where the man was referencing. They fell into place in a finely detailed map in my mind.

"So we're close to Woodshire." My mind was not the only one that came with a map, I would guess, since that place also clicked when my husband stated that.

"Several miles away, and it's not been called that in years. Of course, hasn't been called Brightwood in years either... so we're both guilty of that sin. I granted you my name, boy... yours is?"

His arms held me closer, as he considered the question. "Don't know." He finally admitted, smoothing my hair, and releasing me. "I don't know my own name. I don't know hers. She doesn't know mine, and doesn't know hers. I can only guess she is my wife from the rings on our fingers..."

"You are wed. I feel the bonds placed upon you by a priest. They are true, yes. This is indeed your wife. Odd, indeed, that neither of you remember. I've heard of amnesia, but this...no. This is not natural..."

My husband only shrugged, removing a leather pack from his gear and turning it over in his hands. I already knew what it contained; I had one just the same, with the same crest tooled on its cover. It was a flint and steel kit, and he knew how to use it well, a handful of dried grass, some twigs and a fast flick of his wrist produced a fire.

The priest, a small, thin man in dark clothing, tilted his head, picking up the cast off leather holder and running a finger over the tooling. "You and the woman both carry gear from the old Silver Hand."

My heart froze although the reference echoed emptily in my head. I stared between him and my husband, uncertain. By the glance my spouse sent me, he was equally uncertain. "Although you're both too young to be that." The priest finished, placing the kit down again. "Left to you by someone, I guess. So, I have two younglings, out in the woods by themselves, who don't remember a damn thing about who they are or what they're doing. Well, at least you were bright enough to bring gear for this, but..." He glanced into the sky and I followed his gaze. The clouds above were low lying and a sullen granite hue. Combined with the heightening chill in the air and the heavy damp, it meant snow. A lot of it. "I'm going to suggest a judicious retreat from the wilds to the nearest town."

"Wise." I agreed, and my shiny new spouse nodded agreeably.

I had felt fine when I had first climbed out of my roll, but by half a mile travel, I realized something was wrong. I was as shaky as a newborn colt, quick to tire, stumbling over my own feet more than I stumbled over the uneven and slippery ground.

"Are you well?" My husband asked softly, coming up behind me and supporting me with his broad stature, his hands on my waist.

"I..." Wanted to put up a brave front, deny what was all too apparent to me, but when I looked into his lovely green eyes, I couldn't bring the lie to my lips. "Do not feel as well as I ought." I managed.

"Hmmm." He lowered his brows, glancing around. I felt small. Useless. Worthless. A burden, and I didn't care for it, especially not before him. Our pause had caught the priest's attention, and he fell back to us. Although he was scrawny, he moved quickly, and had been ranging before us.

"Problem?" He demanded, and my spouse stared equably back at him.

"She seems to be somewhat ill." He noted, and if I could have been swallowed up by the ground, I would have been a happier soul.

"Aye. I noted that earlier, before you awoke. It is one of the reasons I'd like to get her out of the weather before it hits. She is not ill now, but has been very, very ill recently. Why she's out here, like this, I've no idea. Only a fool would travel in such a state..."

I glared back at him. Now I was a fool, and that encompassed my spouse, who had obviously allowed me to travel like this. He caught it as well, judging by his outraged expression, pulling himself up to his full height and glowering at the priest. "Enough of that, boy." The priest replied, obviously unimpressed. "Right now we make for the town as quickly as possible... while you're still a married man and no widower."

The nearest town was hardly worth the label, but there were a few clustered buildings... Our benefactor headed straight for the largest of them, a dilapidated inn. I gave my spouse a dubious look, but he only shrugged in answer. "A roof's a roof." He murmured, and I had to agree with him on that score. As if to pound his words in, the sky opened and snow began to fall.

"Let me do the talking." The priest stated, preceding us up the rickety steps. I could feel the weight of multiple eyes resting upon me, from the houses around me, and I disliked them. I shared those senses with my spouse, who had ducked his chin into the cup of his throat, his expression wary and his eyes in constant motion. He had his non sword hand resting on my shoulder, and his sword hand free over his hip... where his glaringly absent weapon should rest.

The common room of the inn was busier than I would have guessed looking at the rest of the town, obviously they'd all come in from the weather, and come in here. The air was warm, heavy with the smell of a bad beer and mediocre cooking. In spite of that measure, my stomach growled in anticipation, gurgling audibly. "Ah, afternoon!" The priest greeted expansively, either not grasping the wary distance that the bar patrons regarded us with, or, more likely, determined to bull his way through it. "Fierce afternoon without. The snow has come."

"Aye." the barkeep agreed. "Your timing is good, though traveling in this month is not good." His eyes fell on me, and his eyes went puzzled. "Especially with a lass. A little bit of a lass, at that."

"Ah. My niece, Besseth. Yes, I know, but times as they are means you don't always choose when it's time to go."

That struck a true chord in the innkeep, he swallowed it with no doubts. "And the man?" He inclined his chin towards my husband, who remained stubbornly and warily silent. "Old enough, big enough, to bear arms for Stormwind..."

"As he did." The priest sighed gustily, claiming a stool against the bar and climbing onto it. "The gates have fallen. Those called are released to carry on with their lives, with the King's blessings. He served..." He beckoned to my husband, who came up slowly, and permitted the priest to flatten his hands, palms up, on the bar. "My niece's husband. Adrian."

That was no more his name than Besseth was mine. But it was a name, and from the wary distance in the room, I understood that to have none was not wise. These people were jumpy enough; we didn't need to add the unlikeliest of stories to it. "Your lass looks ill." The innkeep noted slowly, and the closest man to me sidled away. My husband stood behind me, hands on my shoulders, head tilted as he contemplated the small crowd. I didn't need to hear his thoughts; he was measuring, looking for the opening to begin violence.

"She was injured during the fight for the Gate." Mathys chuckled, still smoothly calm. And, that was the first statement that I had heard since awakening this morning that seemed right. Yes. That was it; I had the split second recall of staring at a Gate, the restless motion of a mount beneath me, a sword in my hand... "She's not plagued, man. Get your senses about you, and I'll have one of those beers."

"Injured at the Gate? That little bit of a thing...?"

"Yes...and a big, strapping man like yourself is here, safe." Mathys drawled. "Where's my beer?"

"Three beers, and food." My spouse, and yes, Adrian was a fine enough name to call him until I remembered otherwise, stated, releasing his hold on me. The flux of incipient violence waned, we were still watched, but that was more curiosity now. "And a room."

"Right."

As it smelled, the beer was bad... too bitter and young, and the food was merely mediocre. "Blech." I muttered, and Adrian chuckled.

"Pretty bad, yes." He agreed. The priest said nothing, and by the speed and efficiency of his eating, he found nothing at all wrong with it. I shrugged, now that I had some food in me, I felt even less well, tired and dizzy. "Enough." He murmured, picking me off of the trestle with ease, and cradling me in his grasp. "To bed with you, my wife."

I was asleep in his arms well before he made it up the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6

It was very still and very quiet when I woke, and I knew then that it had snowed. A great deal, for only a world blanketed in snow felt quite like this. The light in the room was pale, washed out, wan, it was still overcast. There could be more snow, then.

Adrian stood in the center of the room, bare to his waist, moving through unarmed sword exercises with the ease and grace of long practice. I let myself watch the show with admiring eyes, until he peered over his shoulder. "The lady awakens." He chuckled, and I thrilled to his very laugh. "I guess...I am a swordsman. This is what I know."

Well, at least he knew what he knew. I climbed from the bed, shrugging. "It would appear so."

"And you?"

"Maybe I'm just the wifely one." I offered, and he laughed outright. My soul echoed that as hardly correct. No, I had stood at the Gate, beside him, I was certain of it. I could feel the horse beneath me, the weight of a sword in each of my hands as I guided the warhorse with my weight, my knees. "It's snowed badly, hasn't it?"

He grimaced, all the answer I needed. "Yes." He confirmed. "We may be stuck here for awhile."

"Lovely." I sighed, feeling the weight of his eyes upon me. It was only fair, as much ogling as I had done that he do some in return.

"You are, indeed." He agreed, watching me walk to the window and peer out of it. That was a great deal of snow. Heavy, deep, wet snow, the worst kind to travel in. We were going nowhere...

I sensed him walk up behind me, and did not bridle when he wrapped arms around me. "A strange time... Besseth." He breathed into my ear. "I know, it's not your name. It's wrong. I know your name, and that is not it. I only wish I could remember, and call you by it. I wish I could remember so many things..." He lowered his hand to my lower belly. "Such as why my new wife has borne children."

I bowed my head. Even as muscle ridden as I was, I still bore the marks of childbearing. He was right. "And..." He sighed, burying his face in my shoulder, "Why she wears another man's wedding band around her neck."

What? I peered down, and yes, from his higher vantage, looking down my chemise, he would be able to see that I wore another band suspended around my neck on a fine golden chain. I pulled it out, studying it. A finely crafted golden band, inset with blue stones, hung from it. There was no doubting that this was a wedding band, and equally no doubting it belonged to me. "He's...gone." I whispered. I couldn't call a name. I couldn't call a face; all I could call was emptiness, lack... Death. I was a widow. I turned into his grasp, hoping against hope he'd banish that emptiness. He did, picking me up and carrying me back to bed.

Even with gold to soothe our way, the town was not happy to have us. I knew it was simple, gold tastes bad. It can't be eaten, doesn't fill an empty belly or burn for warmth. And, as if to mock us, it kept snowing. Housebound and jittery, Adrian and I were left to find our own amusements, none of which calmed those around us.

"Going to settle that girl with child soon enough, the way you're going." Mathys noted with a wry chuckle, and Adrian flared nostrils in response. "But I am glad the pair of you get along as well as you do." He continued, oblivious to my stare and that of my spouse.

"Humph." Adrian muttered, his eyes falling to mine. There was nothing to say, of course if we continued, there would be a child. That went without saying. I was no fool. I knew where babies came from. And as stupidly foolish as it was, I wanted another one. Badly, with a deep ache I couldn't explain. Had I lost the one I had before the same as I had apparently lost the husband before? He opened his mouth to continue, but was interrupted by a scream.

Adrian galvanized into motion, hitting the door a good stride ahead of the nearest man to him. I gave chase, holding back my frustrated snarl. Idiot. Unarmed, and acting like he was some sort of paladin... There was a militia for this sort of thing. I pushed that thought away. In the month I'd been here, I'd seen that militia. I had more faith in my ability to fight armed with a length of stove wood than I had in their ability to fight with those abominations they termed weapons.

The village common had been snowy before, but I erupted into a blizzard of driven snowflakes. I didn't need the sinking feeling in my stomach to judge it unnatural, and I cast my glance around looking for Adrian. Without him, I was doomed, and I knew it. The priest joked about a child, but I had seen no evidence of a blood show in the month we'd been here. No joke... the last thing I wanted was to be the pregnant double time widow stuck in this backwater. He was a little hard to miss, thankfully, confronting the wall of snow, and I slid to a stop. Something about that just seemed...wrong. Wrong was also my first split second reaction to the undead appearing from it, I felt...relieved. Relieved until they broke for Adrian, and there was little doubting their intent. Can't hurt him, he's mine. My mind hissed, and I threw an open hand out in their direction at the exact moment my spouse did the same. I expected... what, I was not certain. Somehow, I felt I could stop them, my mind envisioned them falling down to rise no more, but I did not expect the strike of lambent golden light I produced. I had targeted the ones closest to Adrian, who had, of course, targeted the ones closest to himself. They dissolved in a riptide of brightness, an effect which carried on to the handful immediately beyond them. My fingers glowed, and there was a bright runic circle forming around my feet, a mate to the one centered on Adrian as he faced the oncoming torrent.

"No!" He bellowed, loudly audible even in the screeching wind, throwing his hand into the air. Another dazzling brightness, and he held a weapon in that hand, a shimmering warhammer, a paladin's weapon. He was a paladin...we were paladins. I became aware of the weight of weapons in my own hands, and glanced down. I bore a sword, graceful and glowing. I had been wearing shoes, but now I wore tall, hobnailed boots, steady on the ice, covered in shining greaves.

I hopped into motion, driving to flank Adrian at his weakest point, deep to his left. He pivoted gracefully to place me in the perfect position there, with the ease of much practice. We'd done this before... Many times before. Come no closer... These meant to do me harm. That was unacceptable. They meant to do Adrian harm, and likewise, that was most certainly unacceptable.  
"You stand for the Light, Lass. Before your righteousness, the dark cannot exist. You are the bastion of safety in which those in need hide. You do not stand for yourself. You do not stand for even those you love. You stand for those who need you to. Never forget that which brought you to this place. Never forget that which forged you..."

Forget? If I didn't need every hard won breath, I would have laughed outright. Never forget. Obviously I had failed that one miserably.

"You must forget to remember."

How very twisted, how very senseless. Or it should have been, but it wasn't. I trusted this voice, even if I couldn't put a name to it. Of course, I couldn't put a name to my spouse, or myself.

"I am a paladin." I stated to myself, and the formless voice in my soul.

"You are. And have always been." It answered after a momentary pause. The runic circle around my feet glowed brighter, illuminating the cascades of snow tumbling from the sky. The undead hiding within the snow shrank away, then dissolved when I focused the light upon them. There was a crash and a blinding flash when Adrian hefted the warhammer over his head and brought it down to the ground, and then there was silence. It was over, almost as quickly as it had begun.

And with its passing I felt weak again, wobbly and shivery. The cold, which moments ago had not bothered me, bit through me. And the voice was gone just as abruptly... I turned, shaking, and ran headlong into Mathys. "Enough of that, now." He muttered, audible only to me, and threw an arm over my shoulders, enveloping me in the dark wool of his ragged traveling cloak. "Come back inside."

I was happy to, in spite of the unmitigated stares from the patrons. Someone pressed a mug of heated cider into my hands, and I managed to get a full swallow down. It warmed my belly and suddenly made me incredibly sleepy.

"What's wrong?" Adrian demanded from behind me, and I felt his hands take my weight from the priest's support. He turned me easily enough to lean me against his greater mass. "She's ill again?" He asked softly, and I caught Mathys's nod from the corner of my eye. "I don't understand." He muttered, lifting my weight easily. "Channeling the Light should not make her worse. It should have healed her, if anything."

"I don't know. Bring her upstairs, and I'll take another look at her."

I was carried upstairs, and laid out on the bed. I could feel Adrian lurking in the corner, frustrated and worried, while Mathys leaned over me. "Paladin, eh?" He murmured, loudly enough for my spouse to shift nervously. "Both of you. Paladins. With not a memory between the pair of you. Can't be good." He picked up my hand, and try as I might, I could not open my eyes to watch him, or beckon enough strength to reclaim the hand. I felt warmth, sunny, bright, from his grasp, and from the hand he rested on my chest, over my armor. "She is not sick." He sighed again, "Everything tells me that. Everything tells me she is tired. She was very, very ill, but is recovering well. Now, she is also carrying a child... but nothing seems awry with that, either. She carries it well..."

"As she always has..." Adrian began, and silenced immediately, stunning himself with the words.

"Aye." Mathys agreed slowly, "It's not her first. And not her first by you. She is born to birth sons to stand in the breach. She has before. She will again. This pregnancy is the least of your worries..?"

"It is a worry." Adrian breathed. "How can I be a father when I don't know who I am? What can I give a child when I don't even have myself?"

"The only thing you do have is yourself, and this one who stands beside you. You love her?"

"I do."

"Then the pair of you have all you need. Now you..." he pulled the blankets high up under my chin. "Sleep." And so I did.

I felt much, much better when I woke. For the first time in my admittedly short memory, I felt stable, rooted, strong. Again, I woke safe in my husband's arms, his chin propped on the top of my head, while the priest snored on a cot in the corner.

"Adrian." I murmured, and I felt him shift in response.

"Morning." He said, pulling away from me enough to catch my eyes. "How are you?"

"I feel...so much better." I must have looked so much better as well, judging by the naked relief in his eyes. "I'm hungry." I continued plaintively, and he chuckled.

"Eating for two." He said, and I stared at him warily. There were so many reasons why a sane man would not find that news reason to celebrate... "None of that, Bess." He answered quickly, raising a hand to smooth my hair. "As we both knew, we led ourselves to this. And we'll bring ourselves through this. I cannot imagine not welcoming a child of ours, even if our timing is terrible. Another son of Lordaeron..."

Somehow, I'd heard that before, it rang in the empty caverns of my memories... "But we're not in Lordaeron..." I noted aloud, and puzzlement crossed his features. If my understanding of where we were was correct, then we were within the borders of Stormwind, not Lordaeron. Had we not, as stated by the priest, upheld Stormwind? Had we not answered her king's call to travel to the Gate? King Anduin? Grasping that name brought a face, a voice, with the same sharp knowledge as the map in my mind. I had seen King Anduin. Judging by the flurry of sudden images I had, I had seen him more than once, over a span of years.

"Stormwind." He mused, shaking his head slightly. "I...cannot say, Bess. But. I can get you that breakfast you're pining for. Up."

I sighed, climbing from the oh, so warm bed and shrugging into my cast off gown. I was not looking forward to going downstairs and facing my hosts now. Light only knew how they'd take yesterday's events, and we were hardly their favorite people as it was. I wanted my own home, my own place to belong, not here. And now, with a baby coming... I placed the flat of my hand over my belly.

"'Twill be spring before you even begin to show." Adrian interpreted my motion dead on, "And we'll be leaving here then anyway. Find a place a little more welcoming... Stormwind, maybe..."

Every fiber of my sanity screamed rebellion against that idea. That was worse than ill advised, that was...suicide. That was...panic. I could only imagine the expression on my face, but I could see the sudden fall of Adrian's features as he considered his own words. Obviously, his heart screamed the same, and he shook his head in puzzled denial. "Fine. Not Stormwind. Elsewhere, then." He pulled a tunic over his head, and stepped into his boots.

I didn't feel the wary stares I was expecting when I appeared downstairs, Adrian in his usual place at my back.

The innkeep studied me, placing my breakfast before me as I sat. It was an unusually pleasant move compared to his behavior recently, and I stared back at him for a long moment before I sat and helped myself. It was as good as it ever was, I was certain I could cook better, but the last thing I wanted to be known for here was my cooking. I had no urge whatsoever to become a inn cook.

"You look better this morning..."

"Thank you." Adrian sat beside me, and was treated to his breakfast with the same unprecedented level of service.

"So. The pair of you be paladins, eh? Released from the King's service?" One I was certain of, the second meant little to me. I knew of Anduin Wrynn, Stormwind's king, but I felt no tie, no fealty, to him. I felt tied to Lordaeron...and I rummaged for her King's name. I came up empty, and that was disturbing.

"No longer in service to Lordaeron." I stated slowly, uncertain if it was a prudent answer. His brows rose quickly, and he measured me again with his eyes. It could be dangerous, with the large holes in my memory, to claim to be from elsewhere, but then, it could explain so many gaps in our answers. For all I knew, Lordaeron and Stormwind were at war...

"Lordaeron. Ah, yes. The pair of you traveled far then, to answer the call to stand at the Gate. And then, stuck here when it collapsed. Poor run of luck. But that means..." He looked at me. "You don't answer to Stormwind's call?"

"I have no oaths to Stormwind, or Anduin Wrynn." Those two were answers I was certain of.

"We been talking." The innkeep began, gaining both of our wary attentions. "Winter's going to be long, and hard. Not right to keep the three of you here, skimming your gold...while you fought for us. The winters have always brought the undead down harder than the other seasons, and we could use the three of you to help turn them away, as you did yesterday." He raised muddy green eyes to me. "An' every woman needs a home. We've got a farmhouse, lost the family who owned it, we'd be willing to let the three of you live there. It's mostly supplied; we'd make up the difference, if you'd do some fighting for us."

I looked over my shoulder at Adrian...anything to get the hell out of here... He looked hopeful, but not set yet. "We can go take a look at it, since the snow seems to have let up a little."


	7. Chapter 7

The snow had let up, but the drifts still came up above my knees when we set out. We were led down an icy road, barely more than a pathway, but better than the deep snow. The house in question was less than a mile, and the innkeep paused on the hill overlooking it. "There." He finally muttered. I stared at it, measuring. The land was good, and unless my eyes failed me, the buildings and fences were still in good repair, and an orchard grew close to the house. The prior owners had been diligent...I glanced at the innkeep, absorbed his stare, and shrugged. Pity they'd died...

Even bigger pity they'd died in the house. The first room was quiet, dusty, with a wide splash of deep brick splattered across the white plaster walls. There were matching stains on the broad plank floor and I met Adrian's eyes.

He had been staring at the wall with the same transfixed stare that I had. "They died here." He murmured, and the innkeep froze for a second until he gave us both a pained smile in response. "Bess...you comfortable with the idea of that?"

I shrugged, ranging through the house. It felt abandoned, alone, empty, but nothing felt threatening. It was well kept, and sturdily built, and it seemed a waste to leave it sit to rot. I was also fairly certain I had lived in a home where I knew someone had died before. I knew I had walked over that spot many, many times before, with no ill effects. "Needs paint." I stated coldly, and the innkeep's pained smile faltered, startled. "Needs soap. Nothing that won't fix."

It took a couple of seconds for the innkeeper, and indeed, Adrian, to recover from that pragmatic statement. "Soap and paint, right." The innkeeper sighed, shaking his head. "Guess you're right with that. We'll get you some up here right away." He left in a hurry, as if he was afraid I'd change my mind. Adrian watched him go through the dirty glass of a front window.

"You're fine with this?" He asked again, and I studied him.

"Yes. Why?"

He shrugged, turning away from the window and pushing his sleeves up. "If you're fine with it, then it's fine." His eyes went back to the cascade of dried brick, and he tore them away to stare at me. "I'll bring in wood. Get a fire going, and then I'll help you get things in order here."

There was a lot of wood cut, and the storeroom was full. All in all, not so bad. A lot of cleaning, and it would be more than livable. The innkeep arrived back a couple of hours later, pulling a drag with some boxes, our hapless priest trailing him.

"New house?" Mathys asked, stamping his feet off on the stoop before stepping inside. "And we're going to forgive it the fact that it's haunted?"

Haunted? I gazed at him dubiously, rug beater dangling from my grasp. I had gone through every inch of the house, up, down, and every corner. I still sensed no threat at all. If it was indeed haunted, then I felt nothing. "I feel..." I almost said nothing, but that was not entirely the truth. Again, I sensed no threat, but my mind shied away from saying nothing was there. "Nothing bothersome." I settled on. If anything, the longer I stayed here, the safer I felt here.

Mathys looked at Adrian, who gave him a noncommittal shrug in answer. "I don't feel as content here as Bess seems to, but I agree that I feel no threat."

I wrinkled my nose. And they said that women were supposed to be the spooky ones, jumping at mice and shadows. "Did you bring my paint?" I demanded. While he seemed to honestly want to help, Adrian was no housekeeper. Painting seemed failsafe enough to put him to work with.

"We did." The innkeep proved it by pulling a bucket and brush from one of the crates. He only chuckled when I indicated Adrian, handing off the supplies to my spouse, who took them and immediately set to work obscuring the last remaining visible trace of a tragedy.

I let the two of them work, watching Mathys's fitful glances and Adrian's visible unease. Something had both of them bothered, but for the life of me, I could not put a finger on what it was. I had felt secure the first moment I walked in, but I seemed to be alone in that.

"We could just go back." I muttered, and Adrian shook his head quickly.

"No, no. Bess. Here is better than there, we were wearing out our welcome quickly."

Mathys looked less than convinced by that argument, and only shrugged, dropping his eyes when I looked at him. Secure that I had Adrian's blessings, if not his, I set to soothing souls with a much better dinner than we'd been living on for the past weeks.

And it snowed. The snow called to me unlike anything I could understand, I stood out in it, staring into granite skies, waiting for something that never came. I was not the only one, I caught Adrian furtively doing it more times than I cared to count, when he felt he was alone.

We had gotten a new snowfall, fresh and pristine white, the day still and almost warm. I had been cooped up for too long, and had gone wandering, when I saw them for the first time. There were two of them, large men both, standing in the shadow of a large tree. They wore matching armor, muted in the dull day, and I narrowed my eyes as I stared at them. Soldiers, here? Impossible. The passes were dead closed, and no one was passing through them. And these I would have seen, felt, noticed... if they'd been in town. But they seemed so damned...familiar. I had the same instant recognition that I had experienced in the first moment I'd placed eyes on Adrian, and the same stubbornly hollow lack of any name or identification to put to them. I knew how these two stood. I knew how these two moved. How they breathed. All I was suddenly aware of was that I wanted to see them, hear them, lay hands on them and touch them. I wanted to make them real. I wanted to make them whole...

I burst into a sliding run, and the dark haired one startled at the motion, pivoting behind the tree. The red headed one followed suit, moving with the power of a man long accustomed to living in armor.

"No! Wait!" I screamed, floundering through the drifts. I grabbed the tree, using my weight to sling myself around it, and saw...nothing. They were gone, just like that. No trace. I studied the snow; there was no proof of their existence whatsoever. "No!" I screamed again, and there was no answer. I dropped to my knees, giving into hiccupping sobs that escalated into bitter tears.

"Bess!" Adrian's bellow was palpable, solid...the sound made birds take flight, so they heard it as well. "Bess!" He broke from behind a rock, sliding to a stop when he saw me. "Bess. Are you well?" He again wore the armor of a paladin, the same armor as the two men had; only there was nothing at all muted with it, even when he passed beneath a tree. It shone. It glowed. He carried the warhammer cradled in his grasp, at ease with its weight and heft.

"I...I..." I didn't know what, so I couldn't say. He surged towards me, scanning the woodline for a target, any target. "I saw...men. That weren't here. I mean, they weren't real. They were..."

"Ghosts." Mathys noted gloomily, coming into view several yards behind Adrian. "I told you. And they frightened you?"

I wished so. That would be simple. That would be comprehensible. It'd be equally silly, the little girl wailing her heart out because she'd seen something unsettling, but I could explain it. "No! I wanted... to see them. I knew them. I wanted to speak with them... They ran away from me." The wailing threatened to come again, and Mathys came closer, his eyes intent.

"You knew them?" He asked steadily, extending a hand to help me out of the snow. "You wanted them?" I let him brush the snow from my skirts, from my shoulders.

"I did."

"Hmmm." He glanced back in the direction of the house, then in the last place I'd seen the two men. "I was mistaken." He marveled, as if that was a rare and fine idea. "The house isn't haunted, there's nothing there at all. You are the haunted one."

"What did they look like, these men?" Adrian asked, moving closer now that he'd ascertained there was no threat hiding in the cover of the woodline.

"There were two. Both were large men, they both wore..." I motioned at him, and Mathys's narrow face stilled. "That, exactly. One of them had reddish hair, like a fox. The other had black."

"That, exactly?" Mathys repeated warily. "No difference?"

I narrowed my eyes. No, I had not been completely correct. "Adrian's is more ornate. Brighter..." Both of the men had worn very close to this, stylistically, but their golds had been richer, heading for bronze, their blues darker and tinged with purple. "But theirs was the same." I insisted on the oxymoron, even though I had just proved myself false in it. Even my own had been the same, but different.

"I understand." Mathys murmured, and I blinked. He did, and I did not. "The boy wears armor of the old Silver Hand. You did as well. Yours is the same as his, although they are not identical... They identify you both as the same. These two ghosts of yours wore armor from the same organization, with personal differences, made them fully initiated paladins."

"The Silver Hand?" I queried, and he shrugged. This was not the first time he'd noted we were carrying their gear. "So that is who we belong with?"

Adrian drew his breath in a barely disguised hiss, and if the priest heard it, he gave no sign. No, yes...something was wrong with that. "Doubt that, lass." Mathys chuckled, staring back towards the house. "You be, what... eighteen? Twenty at the most? That one..." he jerked his chin in Adrian's direction, "Not more than a hand's worth more... Twenty five? The Hand that this gear came from has been dead for longer than you've lived. If I had to make a guess, I'd say you were both the children of some of the survivors of the Purge, who granted you their gear as heirlooms. There are tales of such groups living hidden, even now."

"Be that as it may." Adrian interrupted, "We've spent enough time here. Bess is wet, and cold. All this noise may attract attention."

"Aye." Mathys agreed, offering me his elbow. "For all the lass is well now, does us no good to forget some things."

I sighed, taking his elbow and moving through the snow towards home.


	8. Chapter 8

"Bah." I grumbled, going through the kitchen yet again. I knew what I wanted, and that want was quickly growing towards a full blown craving. The morning had dawned bright, and again, it looked like a lovely clear day, warm enough to cause the icicles outside of the windows to drip.

The previous owner had indeed stocked well, but the house lacked certain things I wanted with a deep urge. "What?" Adrian asked, his feet propped comfortably up on the table. "You've been restless all morning."

"I want..." I wanted deep, puffy, chewy sweet rolls; I even had the recipe fixed in my mind, except for the distressing fact that I lacked certain of the ingredients. I wanted tea, but there appeared to be none. The only barrels downcellar had flour, apples, potatoes, carrots, in them, not beer. Not mead. Not wine, not even vinegar, and I tired of drinking water. "...Things I don't have." I concluded grumpily.

He glanced at the window. "Give me a list and I'll go see if I can buy them. The weather is going to hold for the morning, at least. I'll take Mathys with me, and we'll bring them back?"

I grinned at him, retrieving my pack from our room and writing a quick list on one of the scraps of parchment contained in my map case. He scanned the list easily, nodded, tucking it into his belt pouch, and stood. "We should be back before dark." He kissed me on the forehead and left without a look back.

I was upstairs, airing linens, when the sudden frantic knocks on the door startled me from my reverie. "Hail the house! Hail the house!" A cracked, child's voice called. I moved down the steps and looked out the window. Yes, a young girl on the verge of womanhood, her hair still caught up in braids. She was alone, soaked and muddy, panicked.

I pulled the door open and she fell through, catching herself. "Ma'am! Ma'am!" She panted, trying to catch her breath. "Heard tell there be paladins living here? A priest?"

"I am a paladin." It was difficult to banish the smug from my voice, something about being allowed, able, to say that...

Relief crossed her features. "My Mam labors. It goes badly, and my Pap is out checking the trap lines since the weather is so fair. 'M not allowed to go into town by myself, but they never said nothing about not coming here, to the neighbor's..."

"I'm coming..." I charged back up the stairs, taking them three at a time, to again retrieve my pack. "Where?" I demanded, and she pointed away from the town.

"Two miles." She said, and my heart fell. On foot, dressed as she was, she'd taken way too long to get here. We'd have the problem repeated on the way back...

"You are a paladin, lass." The male voice in my head sighed. "With all the gifts of such at your disposal. Call your charger and ride to the woman's aid. You are correct, time is of the essence."

Charger? I had a sudden flash of memory, riding pell mell down a road, the armored neck of a charger before me, part of a flowing knot of paladins, a woman's arms wrapped around my waist. "Come to me!" I commanded, and indeed, it appeared, silvery gray, barded in silver, bronze and blue. That obviously dispelled whatever doubts the girl had, a wide grin crossed her face as I mounted and offered her a hand to pull her up behind me.

I rode as quickly as I dared; apparently horsemanship was one of my skills. The charger surged across the ice and snow, rarely putting a hoof wrong, and we crested a rise overlooking the farm. It was not as large, nor as well kept, as the one I had inherited, and I sensed desperation and disorder. There were three children on the front doorstep, shivering in barely enough clothing, their faces panicked and lost. Poor little ones... I touched heels to the charger's sides and he plunged down the hill, gracefully weaving between the leafless small trees. I gave no greeting to the cluster of children when he slid to a muddy, icy stop before them, only grasped my pack and hit the door. Time is of the essence...

I smelled blood when the door opened before me, blood and the rank sweat raised from fear. There was another child in the house, obviously the one just younger than the one who had journeyed to get me, another girl. "Who's this?" she demanded, "Maylin, who..."

I ignored her, hopping up the stairs. The room was dark, the only light slid from between the slats of the tightly closed shutters, and yes, the blood smell was stronger here. I heard breathing, shallow, and cursed under my breath. It was cold as well, too cold for this. I threw the shutters open, and stared back at the bed. Bad. Very bad. My lips moved of their own accord, bringing a prayerful chant to my lips. Too much blood. She was exhausted, pale, and her eyes were resigned when she met mine.

"Who are you?" She managed, strengthened by the prayer enough to breathe correctly now.

"Besseth. Your new neighbor." I jerked my chin in the direction of my farm. "Your little girl came to get me..." I strode to the door, not surprised that the girls hung on the stairs, just below the landing. "You two. I need firewood. And a bucket of water. Clean as you can make it. Get on it, now." They nodded as one, bounding back down the stairs. "And bring the little ones inside!" I barked. "They'll catch their deaths outside like that."

"They're scared." Maylin disputed, and I glared at her.

"Scared is better than that cold." I growled, and she nodded. "Just keep them downstairs and out of my way."

They brought me the wood and the bucket. I waved my hand over the water; it was clean enough, but almost cold enough to have a skin of ice over it. I was certain this was not how I had given birth...

"I don't want to lose another one." The woman sighed, and I frowned, steeling myself before I plunged my hands in the water. My pack had soap, rankly smelling soap that brought tears to my eyes when I used it, but this was what it was for.

"Let me see."

The bleeding had slackened, and I gently slid fingers within to check the baby's lie. Instead of head, I felt... I pondered for a moment, thanking whoever had apparently made certain that I understood the basics of midwifery.

"You're welcome, Lass. Female paladins are called for this often."

I wrinkled my nose. That was definitely a shoulder. The right one, at least the child was faced in the correct direction.

"It's breeched." The woman growled, and I chuckled. It was good to hear the resignation flee her voice. She sounded stronger as well. "And probably gone."

"Not breeched." I disagreed, "Coming shoulder first. Shouldn't be too hard to turn. And..." I rested my hand on the mound of her belly. "Not gone yet."

"You're a midwife?" Disbelief and relief colored her voice.

"I had some training." The contractions had stopped, and I carefully eased the shoulder back in and turned the baby's head until I saw the top of its head where it ought to be. "Push." I snapped.

A few seconds later I held a baby boy. There seemed to be nothing new in that, except I was certain mine had come into the world healthier than this one had. He opened his eyes, waved his hands, and emitted a squeaky little cry, not the deep hearted bellow I half expected to hear. I wrapped him up and stood next to the fire, muttering prayers. I was not enough to keep both of them alive through this... the most I could manage was mitigation until I had help...

"Maylin!"

She appeared in the doorway, her eyes coasting from her pale mother to me. "Aye, ma'am?"

"I need you to go to my house. I need my husband and my uncle here. If they're not there, they'll be at town, go get them..."

"But I'm not allowed..."

"Go!" I snarled and she flinched, her eyes going back to her mother. The woman nodded slowly, and the girl looked back at me.

"How will I know them? There're always people stuck here for the winter, so don't say it's the men I don't know."

"Adrian, my husband, is tall. He has longish blond hair, handsome. My uncle is smaller, older, has brown hair with some gray." Looks a little like a weasel, I thought, but did not add. "That shouldn't match too many of those men you don't know." She nodded, fleeing.

There was no chair, so I sat on the floor next to the interior wall, the baby in my grasp, his mother's hand within reach. Hurry, Adrian. I sighed, when the silence grew. I was cold. As the adrenaline wore off, I grew tired. I just wanted to go home...

I must have dozed, because I woke to Adrian's gentle hand on my shoulder. "Bess. We're here. You sent the little one for us..."

"I can't keep them both going for much longer." For a second I was afraid I had failed by dozing, but no, they both still lived. I could hear Mathys tending the woman; feel the heightening gather of the Light as he channeled it.

"Let me have the baby." I was happy to release it, and Adrian nodded. I felt the gather within him, and felt joy when the Light answered his call.


	9. Chapter 9

It didn't take long for word to get around that I was a midwife, and I spent most of the winter trudging around the slippery paths and back roads of the valley, getting to know my neighbors. Sometimes I went alone, but usually Adrian accompanied me. Although he had been happy to front our original introduction to the town, Mathys was not a gregarious sort, and spent most of his time close to the house.

I grew to know my husband well on these long walks, and if I had to say so myself, I had fine taste in men. If there was anything else I would want, I could not think of it, and I wondered if my other had been as lovely an example. That question saddened me, because he must have been. Even now, with this one, the loss of the other left a hole that didn't entirely fill.

Adrian had stated, blithely, that I would not show before late spring, and he was incorrect. I showed early, well before the snow left the ground, and Adrian stared at me for a long moment as we readied for another visit early one morning, with spring losing to a last rally of winter. "Guess that didn't quite turn out." He noted, and I rested a hand on my belly. Everything still felt just fine; I shone with health and contentment. "Bess, I've been thinking."

That was easy to do out here, in this silence and distance. I glanced at him, and he had a solemn expression. "Eh?" I demanded, checking the hang of my bag.

"These people need us." He breathed, and I paused. So that was it. That was what he'd been chewing on lately. "Do we really want to leave? We have a home here. A place to be. Neighbors...hell, some of them are friends..."

I sighed, that was true enough. Once their icy distance had melted, we had been gratefully accepted into this community. If there was even a hint that we wanted, or lacked, whatever we needed turned up without comment. I had delivered two babies, kept one of them and his mother alive when they would have died otherwise, and was watching three more due in spring and early summer.

"We have no guarantee we can find another place before you're due." He continued slowly. "The idea of leaving here strikes me as wrong. Here is where we are meant to be, at least for now."

I frowned. The plan had always been to leave when the passes opened, but I realized that if that was the case, I had been lax in my preparations. The passes would be closed for, at the most, a fortnight. Yet I'd made no plans. I'd done no packing. I'd said no goodbyes. It seemed unlike me. "Mathys won't like that." I noted, glancing in the direction of home.

"We're lost, but that man is running." Adrian stated gloomily, taking my hand to help me over the stile at the bottom of the hill. "He's about as trustworthy as the weasel he looks like. Right now, my responsibilities are obvious, and he's not one of them. You. My unborn. And these people who have taken us in."

"So we stay if they'll let us?" The agreement had been until the end of winter, and I saw the yellow edges of grass showing under the trees. The house, the land it sat upon, were all valuable, and while my wedding present was generous, it was not quite that generous. Our neighbors, with their many hungry children, would be better served with it than the two or three of us. "And, Adrian, we're not farmers." What, precisely we were, I wasn't certain. But I was fairly certain I had been no farmer's wife...

I stood in the farmyard, my hair braided with frayed ribbons, my plaid dress simple and plain, my stockings darned. I glanced over towards the man, my husband, who had his back turned to me. He was garbed in worn linen, dyed in the muted colors of a home dyer's work. He turned to me, and...

I stumbled, lost my balance on the ice, and only Adrian's lightning fast reaction saved me from an ignominious fall. He grabbed me, yanking me into his chest. "Easy, there." He muttered, making certain I was well stable before he released me. "Don't get cocky..." That was when he first caught a look at my face, and he frowned. "What? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

I had. Earlier. One of those two men under that tree, the ghosts, had been that man. The black haired one. "Do you ever get...flashes...of before here? Before you forgot?"

He paused, then nodded. "Yes. I see you a lot. You and another woman. And a town... White buildings, blue roofs. Where we lived when we were paladins."

"Were paladins?" I asked slowly, ignoring the wet seeping into my shoes.

"If we are paladins, then why do I feel sick every time I consider returning to them? The safest, sanest answer to our problem would be to return to the Order. Tell them the truth. We've lost our memories. We were at the Gate, but can't remember. We're expecting a baby. But no.." His brows dropped. "I've given this a lot of thought, when you sleep. Returning to the Order is suicide. Going to Stormwind, likewise. Lordaeron is a giant blank in my mind, which seems worse. What have we done to deserve this?"

"I don't know." Somehow, we had. That I was certain of. We deserved this, and so much worse. "But I know one of the men I saw beneath that tree was my husband."

He sighed, shrugged, and glanced into the rising breeze coming down the mountainside. It carried damp, and he motioned me forwards again. The point was clear. No point in standing out in the cold and wet discussing this when we had a perfectly cozy room to do it in.

Mathys was not around when we arrived back, and I sat on the settle while Adrian tended the fire. "Husband, eh?" He finally stepped back to the conversation, and I nodded. "Gone from us." He glanced in the direction of the tree I had seen them under, and shook his head, "Somewhat. So he is one of the ones who haunts you. And the other?"

I almost got it in that split second before it was snatched away and denied to me. There was only one word there in that moment. "My father." There had been more, so much more, but that was all I managed to come away with.

"Which is why you feel so comfortable here. They watch over you."

"Only once..."

He snorted, adding another knot of wood. "Only once. They hide from you much better than they hide from me, it would seem." His eyes were dark and his shoulders bowed. "They watch me."

"Hmmm." I muttered. He didn't sound quite as if he felt watched over.

"I feel as if I have failed them, but I have you. I failed your father, I failed your husband, they both are dead, I am not, and I have you."

There was a deep, sudden flutter within me, and I placed my hand over it. My fingers felt nothing, but I was certain...

"What?" He demanded, and I grinned at him, the pall that had been growing in the room completely dispelled.

"I felt the baby move." The passes opened again three weeks later, but I knew Mathys had already come to the conclusion we were not leaving when he made a rare trip into town and returned with a cradle. It had not been an impulsive purchase, I understood that when he rested it on the floor next to me. The headboard mirrored the design on my wedding ring, the same odd L P letter carved at the crest of the rise, with swags of apples and pears falling at the edge. "The two of you make the right decision." He sighed, nudging it and causing it to rock. "For yourselves. For your little one. For these people. Just be careful, Besseth. You need to hide as truly as I do..."

I didn't ask, much as I was dying to know. "And you? Do you stay?" Right now, everything about him here reeked of temporary. He didn't even sleep in the other upstairs room, next to the one Adrian and I shared. He slept under the stairs, on a cot...

"The pair of you will need someone to help you watch the young ones who come, while you ride the roads. I grow too old for such things, but not too old to watch babes." He smiled at me, running his fingers down the cradle's side. "And I certainly look forward to the chance to watch yours."

I stared at him. Sometimes, he made me feel as if he knew just a little too much.


	10. Chapter 10

The second baby I delivered came easily enough, and I set out from their home late, an almost full moon swimming in the black sky above me. It was a long way, and the weather still not warm, so I had been feeling justified in calling the charger and armor. It was safer that way, prudent, not to mention warmer and faster...

The ground on the path was spongy, deep with moss, ferns, and rotting leaves, so that the charger made little noise. I didn't see it coming, nor did it see me coming, until the last possible moment.

The charger's ears suddenly flipped forward, and he jumped into a flying change of lead, ducking off of the midway of the track perilously close to several low lying limbs. I ducked, and caught the blurry glance of another charger barely skim by me; close enough to where our stirrups sang when they met.

I pulled the charger back onto the road, pirouetting him in the deep loam to face what I had very narrowly avoided a collision with. Another paladin, and it was most certainly not Adrian. "Hail!" He greeted slowly, pulling his helm off, while I stared at him. His armor was off, wrong slightly... He was a paladin of Stormwind. His horse's barding bore the lion of Stormwind, while mine bore the same L P as many of my things did.

"You bear the seal of Lordaeron."

Ah, the voice was back, as it always came, when I touched the Light within me and embraced what I was.

"Do not show him any more than he has already seen. Turn and ride away. He knows too much as it is."

I nodded, throwing my weight to the side and spinning my horse on his hocks. "Hup!" I snarled, and he burst into a full charge straight from the spin, heading down the track as fast as his hooves would take him.

"Wait! Come back!" The stranger called, and I heard hooves behind me. Damnit. Fool. It took every ounce of knowledge I had of these paths, this area, to finally elude him. And that took hours to accomplish, requiring some riding feats I was not entirely comfortable doing in my expanding condition.

The yard was quiet, the house dark, when I banished the charger and my gear. I ran up the steps, closing the door tight behind me, dropping the latch. Adrian and Mathys were away, gone to the first of the fairs. Since we were staying here, we needed stock, and they had traveled with the neighbors to make that purchase. I was alone, a state which rarely disturbed me, but now, I would have liked some company. Too close a call.

I stirred up the fire, lit the wicks, and did my best to make it seem as if I had been here the entire time. He hadn't been that far behind me... As if in response, I heard hooves, and a quick glance out of the window proved I was correct. He was stubborn, I had to give him that. I greeted him on the stoop, bleary eyed, my hair in night braids. "Baby coming?" I asked, using my exasperation to sound newly awakened and more than a little grumpy.

"What?" He demanded, dismounting and coming into the lantern's light.

"Is there a baby coming?" I repeated slowly. "You were sent for the midwife?"

"Ah, no." He shook his head, planting his helm under his elbow and staring down at me. "You're the midwife?"

"Yeeessss." I drawled, as if I found him a little lacking in intelligence. "There's another reason for you to be here at midnight, then?"

"I'm looking for a paladin."

I looked him up and down, then peered at the charger in my yard. "Seems you've found yourself." He wasn't half bad to look at, not as nice as my Adrian, or even the black haired one, but he was nicer than any other in the Valley.

"No, not me. There was another, on the road. Female, she wore the armor of a knight of Lordaeron..." He frowned in puzzlement, and I sighed, hugging my shoulders. He wasn't going away, and it grew cold. He stepped in when I motioned him to, and I shut the door behind him. "Thank you, mistress." He said, his eyes falling to the visible swell of my belly. "Old Lordaeron." He continued, his gaze casting around the room. Mathys's empty cot was visible, and the house breathed silence. "Where are your menfolk?"

"Gone to the fair to buy sheep."

"And they've left you alone? Like this...?"

I sighed, I'd never get rid of him now. Not until Adrian returned. I recognized that look, that was a paladin who'd seen something that required doing. "You lost your companions?" I asked, and he looked at me blankly. "You said you were looking for a paladin on the road? Lost your companion?"

"No. No companion of mine. I'm not from any Lordaeron lodge, and I'm willing to say she wasn't either."

It was no act to look painfully confused and a little irritated. He took a seat on the bench before the fire, gathering his thoughts. "There aren't supposed to be any members of the Order in this area right now."

I growled at that, and he craned his neck. "None supposed to be here, while those damned undead kill our neighbors, our friends, our stock?"

His face fell. "Fair enough." He finally granted, "Fair enough. This area has been badly treated by the Crown, and the Order, that I admit. You have every right to hold that against us. But the woman I saw earlier was not from Stormwind. Not from here. She wore the full gear of a paladin from Lordaeron."

I placed a tea kettle on the oven, shaking my head. "Lordaeron paladins not allowed here?" I chided, and he chuckled, removing his mitts and extending his bare hands to the fire.

"Lordaeron produced great paladins, and does again. She's just a continent away from where she belongs, and the gear she was wearing hasn't been used by Lordaeron in three decades. If I didn't know better, I would say I faced a ghost...but."

I contemplated and measured my options. Lying was a bad thing, the chances were too high that he'd catch me in it. "I don't know." I began carefully. "There's no one here who doesn't belong here, and you tell me this one does not? This area is rife with spirits, perhaps it really was a ghost?"

"No. That was a flesh and blood sister of the Order." He disputed, and I was thankful that he was turned away from me and missed my grimace. Just my luck, he was not going to swallow that. Of course he had realized I lived. The water heated, and I made two cups of tea and two bowls of stew. He glanced at his warily when I placed them on the bench beside him.

"What?" I demanded, and he shrugged.

"I'm presuming you're married." Again, the glance at my belly and I gave him the look that should deserve.

"I am, indeed." I confirmed, and he nodded slowly, staring around the room. I looked at it again, warily. Had I left something out that should not be? Something that gave too much away? No... the cradle was upstairs, in my room, and the vast majority of what remained had belonged to the previous owners.

"Few here offer hospitality, even fewer women. Your husband not the same jealous type that seems to grow around these areas?"

Ah, that's what had him worried. He was alone with a woman in a rural area. I knew the reception that Adrian and I had received, and Adrian had brought his own bride with him. A lone male was competition to the men, especially one as nice as this one was. And to the older women, he was too free...no farm, no family, too liable to come and go and make trouble. "If Adrian does not trust me, then he's not worthy of me."

The paladin blinked, and I realized the comment was a mistake, but it was too late to bring back. "Eat it before it gets cold." I muttered, and he took a bite.

"This is really good." He stated, and I knew then exactly where he'd been staying. I smiled, almost said something, when the wind changed direction and picked up force. It was a small change, but it caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. A loose shutter banged on one of the windows and I moved to secure it. The moon was still high, but was becoming obscured by deep shadowy clouds, and suddenly I was thankful I was not alone. I felt him put down the bowl and move to stand behind me, almost close enough to touch.

"A dark wind." he said, reaching out to bring the shutter to latch. "Is your husband close by? Expected back...soon?"

"No. They left two days ago. It will take them more than a week to get there, a week to buy, and another back." No, Adrian and Mathys were nowhere near here. It was supposed to be safer, it was spring, the passes were clear...

"Good." He muttered. "Bad. I feel remiss in letting you remain alone..."

"Do not suggest you wish him to leave. I'd rather he knew, than to have you alone tonight."

"Then don't leave me alone." It was a bold statement, but he seemed relieved by it. He went out to get his pack, and dismissed the charger, looking around the yard. It seemed as if the very shadows waited with bated breaths, and his stride was long and quick when he came back. He dropped the latch, and then rammed the door wedge home.

"Cellar entrance?" he demanded, and I shook my head. There had been once, but Adrian had spent a week filling it with bricks left in the barn. The only way into the cellar was from the inside of the house.

"Adrian filled it with bricks; there is no way in there."

He glanced at me dubiously and took the lantern, unerringly heading for the inside cellar door. It didn't take him long to reappear, and he gave me a grudging nod when he did. "Good enough. Any other ways in besides the windows?"

"No."

"And those look fairly sturdy."

I shrugged. Adrian had some artistry with a forge, and had replaced the door and shutters with heavier versions of what had been with the house. The iron binding the oak was as thick as my thumb, tediously hand wrought. None of us had forgotten what had happened to the last people to live here. There was a howl, far away, and he startled. "I noticed no stock on the way in. Your barn lies empty?"

"It does." That raised another dubious look, and I shrugged again. "My husband, uncle and I came here as refugees, travelers, this last autumn. They let us live in the house now..." The truth, and some explanation for the things which didn't want to fit together correctly. "The previous owners died here. All the stock slaughtered. We decided this spring that we were going to stay, so my husband and uncle went to replace the stock..."

"A midwife is valuable, and abandoned lands invite the Scourge to linger."

Yes, to both of those. I watched him as he broke out his bedroll, and shed his harness. "Your room is upstairs?" He asked, and I nodded. "Mind if I took a look upstairs? Just to be certain?"

There were a hundred reasons for me to deny him that, but also none. I had been gone for hours, there actually could be something up there, just beyond my sensing... "I... was gone most of the afternoon, most of the evening, delivering a ba..."

With that, he was gone, moving for the stairs, and I had no chance to bring him back. I trailed him, watching as he hit the first door at the top, the empty bedroom. I could see into it between his ankles, and it was desolately empty as it had always been. He moved on, to the other door, pushing it open. It was not the way I had left it; the cradle had been moved, further into the open. The incriminating carving was obscured, however, by a fine woolen baby throw tossed over the headboard. Adrian had his pack with him, mine should hang from a peg on the wall, but it had vanished. The paladin dropped to his knees, glancing under the bed, and then opened the large chest at the foot. Nothing. I watched him take one final look around, and he nodded his satisfaction finally.

"Seems well enough." He said, opening the window to double check the latch on the shutter.

"Thanks." I said, and he gave me a shy smile in answer.

"Sleep well." He murmured, letting himself from the room, closing the door behind him. I heard his heavy tread on the stairs, and knew he had gone back down. When he was well gone, I heard another step, this one in the room with me, and I spun.

The black haired ghost stood in the corner, half devoured by the deep shadows. He placed my pack on the floor, and smiled at me. "I don't remember." I whispered, and his smile stilled. "I..."

He moved towards me, with the grace of a very large, very powerful man trained to carry his weight. "I know." His voice was faint, wrong, so far away, and I wanted to cry. "You must forget to remember."

Again, that. "I must forget you?" That was a crime. I was certain of that. I owed this man so much more than that. I wasn't certain how I knew that, but I did. He deserved better. He dropped his eyes, a fall of rooster tail black hair across his brow. He turned from me, moving to the cradle and staring down at it. A touch of his fingertip set it to rocking, and he nodded sharply as if he'd talked himself into something he wasn't entirely certain of.

"Yes." He said, and vanished. It was all I could do to stop the anguished howl I wanted to let go of, and perhaps if I'd been alone, I would have given into it. As it was, I buried myself in my covers and cried myself to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

These things are always better in the morning. It was quiet, and calm when I opened the shutters and peered out. There had been things in the yard during the night, but they had been banished with the light of dawn. There was a low lying fog, but it was natural, from the warming spring air passing over the snow.

My guest was deeply asleep in his bedroll on the floor, and I shook my head, stepping around him and going into the kitchen. It was more difficult to hold frustration, anger, against him this morning. He was doing his duty the best he saw fit, and he was palpably exhausted. I mixed a frumenty and placed it to bake,shaking my head in exasperation. Why? Why now? It was too late to change our minds...

There was a timid knock on the door, and I recognized Maylin when I peered out. I stepped onto the stoop with her, rather than disturb the paladin.

"Maylin? All is well?" I asked carefully. Last night had been a dark one, and her father traveled with Adrian and Mathys, leaving them alone as well. I had felt no call to defend them, so I had assumed they had hunkered down to ride out the storm as I had...

"Aye, Mistress Besseth. Well," she paused and pondered. "There's a paladin at our place. He looks for another, and my mam told me that we were not to tell him of you, that you are also..." She looked over at me, measuringly, and I nodded. It didn't take a great amount of intelligence to realize our decision to stay meant something had gone wrong between us and the Order.

"I'd rather they not know. If they did, we might not be permitted to stay here." I sighed, understanding the look on her face. If only I understood why... "I do not serve Stormwind. I do not serve the Wrynns." That was concrete, and truthful. "It would be awkward if they attempted to bring me to serve them. And I would no longer be here." I shrugged. "As for the question, the other paladin is indeed here. You can let his companion know that, and your mam know I appreciate her...silence."

She nodded, and ran away, back towards home. About an hour later, while my guest still slept, I heard hooves back in the yard. Again, I peered out, and sighed. There were definitely two of them, the one asleep on my floor, and this one. And this one was the older, more experienced of the two. I stepped out and watched him. This one was a force to be reckoned with...

"Mistress...Besseth, I believe?" He asked, dismounting and walking towards me. He was a good two decades older than the other, walking with a rolling strength and grace.

"I am Besseth."

"I am told you have sheltered my young companion, Hiram, for the night?"

"If that's his name, then yes." I hadn't bothered to ask him, he'd never bothered to ask me. It seemed more than foolish in the bright spring day, but names hadn't mattered last night. "He's asleep on the floor." I stepped aside to allow the older man entrance. "Come in. Breakfast is almost ready, I was going to wake him soon..."

"Leave him for now." The paladin walked within, his gray eyes skimming over the visible rooms. I fought the urge to make certain, yet again, that everything was in order, and busied myself with the frumenty. "I am told by your neighbors that your men are also gone as theirs are?" He asked, taking a seat on the trestle, closest to me, furthest from his sleeping protégé. I nodded, bringing him some breakfast and tea.

"Gone to the fair to buy stock." I muttered. He glanced over at me, and I wondered when I had become a belly instead of a person. Of course, standing as I was, my belly was eye level to him, but still. The greatest rebuttal I could come up with in Adrian's defense was that I could fend for myself, but I couldn't say it. I had to let it go, let him be the sort of man who had left his visibly with child wife alone in this place. Of course, if he'd taken me along, then he would be the sort of man who would have that visibly pregnant woman on the road, traveling and bedding down with those questionable souls who came to a stock fair. It was a no win situation, and I knew it. "You'd have me travel with him?" I asked. "And leave the valley without its midwife, and a babe on the way? Born last evening, he was."

His brows rose, and his eyes flew to my face. "You're the midwife? The refugee who has settled here with the smithing husband?"

I placed my own bowl on the table, dishing up breakfast and adding a dollop of cream to it and my tea. "Yes."

"Ah." He breathed, taking a bite. It earned a grudging nod, and yes, it was good, thick, creamy, spicy, just to my taste. "The pair released from the Armies..."

Well, it had been tasty. The turn of my stomach soured it, and I raised wary eyes to him. Don't ask for a writ, please. While I had papers, an amazing amount of them, maps, tactical notes with sweeping arrows penned on them, terse snippets of instructions or thoughts in my own handwriting. They meant little to me now, but I understood enough of what I read to grasp that a viciously strategic mind had penned them. I had penned them. But nowhere in those papers were writs releasing either of us from an army, or anyone's service. If I read them correctly, they screamed just the opposite; I should have never been released. That was my gift, more than bringing babes into the world, and at some point, I had been using it to its fullest... He was still talking, and I forced myself to listen again.

"You've been welcomed here? If not, we could sweeten their deal, or find another place for the two of you. It's a hard hit area, though, and from what I've been hearing, we'd like to keep you right where you've ended up at. But with a babe of your own on the way, I can certainly understand why you might wish a more settled, safer, area..."

The sleeping mound shifted, grumbled, and the other paladin sat up. He glanced in our direction, then scrambled out of his bedroll, somehow managing to avoid ending up on the floor again. "Master Lorin..." He breathed, and the older paladin chuckled.

"Asleep again, Hiram." He chastised, and the younger blushed rosy. "No. Don't explain. I understand, a long night. But I don't understand what brought you all of the way out here. I see that you found one in need of your protection last night, was that what called you here?"

"No." Hiram frowned, puzzled and dejected for a moment, before he came to sit beside me. "I was on the road I was supposed to be on when I saw..."

I swallowed, vainly trying to shift the knot in my throat, and raised eyes to them. "I saw a paladin on the ridge road." Hiram stated, and Lorin frowned, motioning him to continue. "A paladin." He repeated. "On a charger. It was dark, but there is no mistaking that, even on the darkest nights. It was either a boy, or a woman. It felt like a woman."

I slid a bowl under his nose and he fell to eating immediately.

"A female paladin on the ridge road. We have none here. You didn't ask?"

"She bolted the moment she saw me. Away. I tried to catch her, but could not, her charger was too quick and she knew the way better than I. And...no, she wasn't one of ours." He frowned into his bowl, obviously steeling himself to continue. "She wore armor I've only seen drawn in books, master. The old Order's armor. Lordaeron's old armor, from when the Lodges began. Silver and blue, her cloak passed over her shoulder and pinned there with the seal of Lordaeron..."

I could have merrily planted my face in my food at that statement. Somehow, that detail was important, and I was a fool for not noting it. What had I done? What hadn't I done that I should have?

"She wasn't undead. She wasn't a ghost. She wasn't my imagination, master. She lived, and breathed, and ran from me. A Purge remnant, still in hiding?"

"Possibly. The undead taint in this area is much less than the last time I passed through. Someone, or something, is cutting a swath through them, and if there are remnants operating here, then it makes sense. This area is very remote, under patrolled, and in duress. It would be a perfect settling place for them."

That term meant absolutely nothing to me, and I felt safe enough to ask. "Purge remnant?"

Lorin shrugged, his eyes shifting to me. "You know of the Purge?" He asked slowly, and it was my turn to frown. I did, but in a very distant, dusty sort of way. I'd been taught about it, but it was far removed from me.

"Certainly. Prince Arthas went after the paladins who no longer followed him, sent those who did still serve him to destroy them."

He nodded, more at ease discussing something that he was possibly old enough to remember than the bashfully unhappy younger paladin in front of him, who hung his head and looked forlorn. "Our orders were to scatter. Hide. Survive at all costs, when it became obvious we couldn't stand. The orders came later to come back. There were those who just didn't return, even though we knew they were out there. Now we're beginning to see evidence they've had children, and are raising them as paladins of the Light, removed from the Order. We'd like to see them brought back into the fold and accepted as true paladins..."

"Even if they don't want to?" I asked, well before I considered my words.

That question disturbed him, and he shrugged. "Every time a group has attempted to grow in secrecy, they have become corrupt. The Scarlet Crusaders meant well, in the beginning. They had only the most righteous of ideals, and look where that went. And it's wrong for a paladin to hide, to run, like a common criminal, especially from another of the Order. We would see their children raised alongside ours, Mistress Besseth, with all the resources of the Order at their disposal, not hiding in caves like they are hunted. It was bad enough when it was necessary. Now, it's an affront, a failure, of ours that we cannot bring them in and shelter them."

"It seems wrong to chase those who have done no wrong." I said, putting more in Hiram's bowl, and he took the time to breathe in the scent instead of just falling into eating.

"It does." Lorin agreed. "And they cannot be forced to return, or for the young ones, forced to go, to the Order. But they need to understand..." He sighed, and shrugged, falling silent and eating again. "That we stand ready to take them back. Willing, honored, to bring them home. Home. Either Stormwind, or Lordaeron, it does not matter... The Order grows again in both kingdoms. The King of Lordaeron himself was hidden during the Purge, both of his parents were paladins, he understands. We just want to take care of our own... Give them the best we can."

"This offer is not for you. Not yet. It is too soon, and you will destroy everything if you should take it. Be Besseth, midwife, wife of Adrian, mother of your unborn now. You know this is wrong for you, even though he speaks the truth. Stay hidden, lass. Keep forgetting."

Keep forgetting. I stirred the grain of my breakfast in ponderous thought. "But that as it is." Lorin continued. "You and the next farm over are vulnerable. You seem a little more able and willing to host one of us than the others; we'd be willing to pay our way if you'd be willing to let me or him stay..."

"Her husband's a damn fool." Hiram growled into the steam rising from his bowl. "And the other is a double triple fool. Leaving women, one becoming heavy with child, one with a new babe and a handful of younglings to fend for themselves. It's a crime."

Lorin grimaced thoughtfully. "Your cooking is quite accomplished, Mistress." He chuckled. "And I'm certain your husband is a fine man, and quite aware of his duties with you. And as for you..." He leveled a steely gaze on the suddenly silent young paladin. "It's a hard decision. Do you leave the women who can't travel, while you go and get the stock you and they will need to survive the next coming winter? I do not envy any man forced to make it and carry it out. If they don't have the stock, they will starve. That is a simple truth."

Hiram had the good grace to look abashed. "Yes. I understand. And yes, your oatmeal is wonderful. I've never had its like before. I am very sorry to have insulted your husband, Mistress, under his own roof."

"My husband loves me. He wouldn't have left if there was another option." Even knowing I could wield a blade; call my armor and my charger, Adrian had been loath to leave me. I understood the young one's outrage, and the elder one's quiet reason. There was no right answer.

"No doubting. You're a lovely young woman, and only a fool would leave you without thought. Now, back to my offer... I'd like to see one of us on this end of the Valley. Having you, and that rather large family over the rise without some protection does not sit well with me. Take me, or him, and open your house... again, I'm willing to pay the keep of whichever you choose."

I considered the question slowly. He was correct. Both homes were too far from the town to count on it for support. Until Adrian returned, I was alone, and not entirely in my best fighting trim. And if I was bad off, Maylin's family was much, much worse. I regarded them both, the decision to allow one of them to stay already made. And the question of which one was likewise, easy. "You can stay." I told Lorin, clearing the bowls from the table. "That one is entirely too likely to make my husband lose his temper." I wasn't certain if it were so, Adrian seemed confident enough, but I'd prefer to not find out the hard way. It would do me well to remember, well, that I didn't remember him. I didn't remember his courtship, if there had in fact been one to speak of after I'd lost my first. Widows often moved quickly onto their next, I was very young and had obviously not waited. Not mourned...

"Do not make assumptions from the darkness of your memories, please, lass. I will not stand by and let you do this to yourself. Things are not as they seem. Do you not realize that your first husband blesses this marriage? That he still watches over you? That he still loves and keeps you? He is dead, lass. Gone. You are not. Live while you draw breath, and never doubt why you do. Have this babe. Have a handful more. Be happy, lass. 'Tis what we want for you."

"Fair enough." Lorin stated, and it took a moment to remember what he had been talking about. "I'll stay, and Hiram will return to town. Where do you want me?"

"There's an empty room upstairs. No reason for you to sleep down here when there's a perfectly good room going to waste waiting for babies to be big enough."

He went to get his gear, dismissing Hiram to return to town as he walked by. "I apologize for him." He said when he returned, his gaze following his protégé as Hiram rode away. "He sees the right and the wrong; it's the middle ground that loses him. Of course it is not right for you to be left alone; no fool would say it was. Likewise, it is not right for your husband to not buy the stock you need. There is no right here. Thank you for agreeing to host me. Your cooking is much better than the inn's, and I want to keep an eye on your neighbors. They were not as forthcoming with hospitality as you are, wary and angry."

"They cannot have it both ways." I sighed, washing the dishes and setting them to dry. He watched me for a moment out of level gray eyes, waiting for me to continue. "Cannot have the support and protection they claim to want, and not welcome it when it comes. I know they are hurt, but they do themselves no good by turning away from the Order and the Crown's troops when they do show up. I want what's best for here, and remaining how it is now is not what's best for it."

He nodded slowly, before standing. "I'll bring in wood." He sighed, but paused by the door. "Mistress, if your journeys to deliver babies bring you across the remnants here, you will let them know that they are welcome home, at least?"

"If I see them, I will let them know." I promised truthfully, well aware I would not meet Hiram's remnant female paladin on the road... I saw her in the mirror daily.

Lorin was good companionship; I hadn't quite realized I was missing it. While Adrian was a good conversationalist, his memory had as many holes as mine did, and that left us little to discuss beyond the immediate here and now. Mathys, as Adrian had noted, was hiding and running. He didn't like to volunteer much in discussion. Lorin, however, was not hiding, nor had he lost his memory. The only trick was to avoid letting him know too much.

"Tell me of your husband." He chuckled one morning, leaning back on the trestle. "At least let me know he'll be able to put Hiram in his place."

"Hiram needs to be put in his place?" I echoed, regarding breakfast. I was running out of so much, soon I wouldn't even be able to make a decent frumenty, and that was beyond embarrassment. I was better than this, my ability to set a table... If I couldn't even make the most modest of dishes... I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

"He thinks you're lovely."

"I'm married." I groused, rubbing the ring with my thumb. That was one of the few things I was certain of, and intended to hold onto that fact with all my strength. As if it had heard my thoughts, the baby shifted, and I rested my hand on my belly.

"All is well?" He asked in concern, and I nodded.

"The babe moves early. A good sign. You wish to know of Adrian... Well, he is tall. Blond. Beautiful eyes, a good voice. He fights when he must, and fights well. He's young, older than I, but not by a great deal."

"A good man?"

That was not an immediate yes, and I didn't like how my mind backed away from answering it. How could Adrian not be a good man? Nothing I'd seen, felt, led me to believe otherwise, but my heart still didn't want to go there. "I love him. He's been a fine husband." Something in my voice must have alerted Lorin, who turned to watch me cautiously.

"Besseth?" He asked softly, and I shrugged.

"Adrian is not my first husband. My first was killed in battle, and it is an awkward time to be...alone. Unmarried. It's dangerous."

He still watched me. "You're a widow." He breathed, "And you remarried in haste. I see, and yes, I understand. It's still new, and you're not entirely certain yet. Has he done anything to make you doubt the decision? Is the child his?"

"Adrian's behavior has been exemplary. And yes, the child is his."

"Then I wish both of you the best. These do work, Besseth. I have seen them work, if both of you want it, then you have as much chance as any do."


	12. Chapter 12

I heard sheep on the road, and burst from the door into the yard. Adrian, muddy but grinning, followed a flock of sheep, our neighbor's cart beside him. "Bess!" He bellowed, and I ran to him. It was wonderful to feel his touch, the weight of his arms around me, to hear the peal of his laughter. "Your sheep, milady! I think they're the kind you wanted... The seller said they were."

Mathys appeared from behind the cart, Maylin's father trailing him. Mathys looked the same as he always did, more than a little disreputable, and wary. The neighbor just looked a touch exasperated, obviously he found the large breed of heavy wools I was familiar with to be an extravagant purchase. But they were indeed what I wanted, and fine examples of them. "They are. And they are lovely!" Fewer than I'd been counting on, but each of the ewes were rounded with lambs. They had black open faces, with canny golden eyes, and dense silver roan coats. I sidled up to Adrian and whispered, "We have a guest."

"Eh?" he asked, his sea green eyes dropping to mine. "Guest? Who?"

"Paladin of the Order." And those eyes went distant and contemplative for a long moment before he came back to himself again. "Patrolling this end of the Valley. When he realized I was alone, that they were alone..." I jerked my chin at the rise lying between our home and Maylin's, "He stayed put until you came back. I messed up."

He rested his arm over my shoulders, and shook his head. "Such things just are, Bess."

"He has a young one with him. He saw me on the road. On the charger."

"Such things just are, Bess." He repeated slowly. "We make the best of them. Now, look at your sheep. They didn't come cheaply, appreciate them. And that must be him..."

Lorin had stepped out onto the stoop and was watching us. Adrian painted a wide smile on his face and walked over. "Lord...?" He began, extending his hand, and Lorin watched him come every step of the way.

"Lorin. No lord needed. Just Lorin, Knight of Stormwind. You must be Adrian." He sounded rather measuring, and I wasn't certain I appreciated it.

"I am Adrian, yes."

"Released from the King's army, after having been at the Gate..."

Adrian just stared warily back. "We aren't looking for trouble." He finally said, shaking his head. "I just want to give my wife and our child a place. If that means picking them up and moving them north, towards Lordaeron, I will do that. We don't have to stay within Stormwind's borders. I was not sworn to King Anduin's service. I stood at the gate for other reasons, and those reasons are over. The Gate is closed. It's over. I have a wife. We have a baby coming, and all we want is to stay here and raise sheep and babies, and pay Stormwind taxes. Don't make this difficult to do. I am no deserter. I did not serve Stormwind, I was called to that fight by another..."

"Who?"

"The Kirin Tor called you to stand at the Gate. Stormwind has no sway over them, they remain neutral. Claim the truth, that you were called by them, and this one will have to let it go..."

"The Kirin Tor called for our services to stand at the Gate. Not Stormwind. Not Lordaeron. As he has said, we are not deserters. We stood with them, when they called. We were neutral, and now we are released to make our own way. We were paid for our services there, enough to start again." I said, burying my fingers in the dense wool of the nearest sheep to me, which was now the flesh and blood proof of payment. I'd rather be considered a mercenary than a deserter any day of the week. I had no urge to be returned to an army I had never served, or worse, placed in gaol for a crime I didn't recall ever committing. "So do we carry on north?"

"No." he sighed, coming down from the stoop, still regarding Adrian. He paused for a moment, before he took the hand that Adrian had stubbornly refused to drop. "My apologies. So many fled when the Gate fell, and my reports from that are so spotty, it's difficult to tell what happened. Of course the Kirin Tor stood there, and yes, they had their own soldiers there on the ground for security. My orders are to keep a watch out for deserters."

"We aren't. If we were, we'd have done a better job of hiding and would have never admitted to having been at the Gate." Adrian sighed, shaking his head. "Thank you for watching over my wife, and my neighbors. If you don't mind, we have stock to settle... or you can help."

Lorin nodded, moving to the cart, which I could now see contained penned fowl, and had three large and temperamental looking sows tied to the back. "The sows are ours, as are half the fowl." Adrian stated, and Lorin hefted one of the fowl cages down and headed for the barn with it. "It's all good, Bess." Adrian murmured under his breath, giving me a glancing touch as he passed me by. "Tend the sheep. This too will blow over if we just stay smart." He moved in behind me, when I took the bell ewe and started to lead her towards the barn. "Patrick and I were talking along the way." He began, and I considered the statement. A month was a long time to travel and not talk to your companions. Of course he had spoken to Maylin's father along the way...

"About a couple of things. There's a lot of land with the house and as you point out, we're not farmers." He shrugged. "We could let them work it, and take some of the harvest ourselves as payment. We'd help, of course, but we don't have the knowhow we would need to make it work by ourselves. It would help us, and help them feed themselves. Also, you seem to get along well with Maylin... Would you consider bringing her into the house to help? We'd feed her, educate her, make something more out of her than she's going to get where she is. With the babe coming, you'll need some help..."

"Certainly."

He nodded. "So they are fine sheep? Apparently I'm as incompetent at judging stock as I seem to be with everything else. Why you agreed to marry me is beyond me..."

"They are lovely sheep." I soothed, holding the bell ewe. "Exactly what I wanted." I didn't need to ask, they had been grotesquely expensive. "I know they were pricey. But they're the best. Trust me."

"I do." he sighed, leaning over to kiss me. "You seem to be the only one here who has the slightest clue. And it was your gold that purchased them."

And we settled down into life. I pruned the orchard, and supervised when they plowed out my garden. My sheep dropped lovely lambs, and sheared lovely wool when the nights grew warm enough to part them with it. Yes, I seemed to know exactly what I was doing until it came to the field work. I knew bees. I knew sheep. I knew apple trees, and a house garden well, but corn, that I had no comprehension of. That was fine, though, I had neighbors willing to do and teach, just as I taught their daughter the skills someone had bothered to teach me. I taught her how to shear, how to card and spin, which of the plants around would dye the wool the tones I wanted, how to knit and how to weave. I began teaching her letters, the way of a pen, and how to count and cipher. And I grew as the corn did, reaching full size at about the same time it did.

I gave birth, again, on a beautiful autumn day, with Adrian hovering and Mathys delivering. Maylin was at her family's home, out from underfoot, so that she would not realize the babe was not my first. He came hard and fast, hardly a first delivery, and greeted the world with the bull bellow I had missed with the others I had been delivering. "A boy." Mathys chuckled, "Big, healthy boy. Listen to him scream."

He placed the babe on my chest, and I looked. He had the darkish colorless hair of a child that would have brown hair when he aged, my own had probably been the same upon my birth, but his eyes were sea green. He was beautiful. Perfect, he was long but not too heavy.

"Another son of Lordaeron." Adrian murmured, leaning over to take a look. "He's beautiful, Bess. Again, you outdo yourself. I don't know how I know that, but I do. What do we call him?"

I sighed. I didn't even have the luxury of falling back on the choice of a family name, since I remembered none of them. I looked up into Adrian's intent stare, and knew, suddenly, what the child's name was. "Raymond." I stated. "His name is Raymond."

"A fine, fine name." Mathys stated. "A name to be proud of."

Adrian grinned, nodding, eyes never leaving the baby. Somehow that was poignant, and painful, all at the same time. He picked him up when I offered him up, and watching the pair of them together set an ache deep in my heart. "He's beautiful." He repeated slowly. "Raymond. My son."

"Yes." Mathys agreed slowly. "He is your son. Count yourself lucky, man. Hold him close and raise him well. She's given you a fine one."

"I know." Adrian breathed, planting a kiss on the top of my head. "I am so lucky."

I felt lucky, blessed beyond understanding, even though the work was hard. Every once in a while I caught a glance of one of the two ghost paladins peering into the cradle, but for the most part they gave us a wide berth. I raised the baby, raised Maylin, and did the interminable jobs which needed doing. The smokehouse was full, the cellar full, and when the snows flew again, I settled down to card, spin, and still give Maylin the education I'd promised her. She had a quick mind, I wasn't certain if I'd picked up my lessons as quickly as she did.


	13. Chapter 13

The day had dawned clear and cold, and I moved downstairs to start breakfast and stir up the fire. The red headed paladin ghost stood in the kitchen, where Mathys would not see him when he stirred from his place under the stairs. "Lass." He muttered, softly, and I stared at him. Unlike the other one, who was regularly seen, he'd been much more careful about being seen. "Send the girl home today. Here is not where she wants to be. Things come to an end today, and it will be ugly."

It ended today? I contemplated the words; yes...there was a finality to this day which had been absent before. I had felt this before, and knew that the only answer to a day such as this was resignation. I started breakfast, aware he had vanished from behind me, and sent a reluctant Maylin down the road as soon as she was awake, fed and dressed. It was not easy, she wanted to stay, to go further on her lessons, but I remained resolute, and she finally went.

"Reason why you ran her off?" Adrian asked, and I shrugged. I had no answer; I was going on advice that had no real meat to it.

"She needs to be elsewhere today." I murmured, aware of how empty that sounded. Mathys studied me for a long moment, then Adrian, and nodded. "I am going to town myself." He said, standing and heading for the door. "You two be careful. Don't...do anything foolish." And he was gone, just like that.

"I don't understand." Adrian sighed, eating. "I really don't. Maybe the sheep will make some sense..." He shook his head, got into his heavy clothes, and I could see him go to the barn. I shrugged, picking the baby up and settling him to nurse.

When it came, late morning, it was instant. One moment it was gone, and the next, it was there. I was sitting, spinning, humming a song to myself, and wondering as I always did. Where had I heard this song to hum it? Who had taught it to me? Always before that gave me emptiness, but suddenly, I knew. My mother's maid had taught me this song, holding me in her lap as she taught me how to knit, laughing over a child's clumsy first attempts. My mother. Her name had been Moira. Lady Moira De Nemesio. She had died in her room the first night that the plague fell; I could remember it as if it were yesterday. But that was impossible. It had been more than my life's span since the first plague had risen; I had not been born then... But I remembered. I remembered fighting to save her. I remembered failing. I remembered fighting her in the hallway when she rose as undead, my mind full of panic for my babies in the room behind me. My babies... Anelas and Bayard. My sons of Lordaeron... My...my...name was Clarimonde. Lady Clarimonde De Nemesio. I lost my timing with the spinning, letting the rolag fall from my fingertips. I was Clarimonde, Consort General of the Lich King. Arthas, who had gone down to check the sheep and not returned yet. Arthas...Adrian...what? I could remember facing down the Gate, the charge, and then nothing. But this? What was this? I breathed. My heart beat. I had birthed again.

"Clair, lass."

"Uther." His had been the voice to steer me right, and keep me calm. "What is the meaning of this?" I could hear Raymond stir in his cradle, and I dreaded it. How could I lift him up? Hold him close? I was a monster, an abomination, and somehow I had forgotten that. As if that could be forgotten.

"Clair, lass. You had to forget to remember. Forget what you had become so that you could remember what you were. Please. You had to let go of what he had done to you to remember why we love you. You had to live again so that we could bring you back from where you had gone to."

Raymond snuffled, hiccupped, and I knew what was coming. He'd be bellowing soon enough, loud enough to rock the glass in the windows. "Clair. This is our gift to you. Mine. Baudoin's. Please think of that before you make any swift decisions..."

"Baudoin?" Of course he was a part of it, his very presence proved that, but it made little sense. "Has been standing by and watching while..."

Uther sighed, "Has been standing by and watching while his beloved lives again. Breathes again. Has another of the sons that kept her sane and going forward through the worst of times. Yes, that put you back with Arthas, but it is only right that one is the force that mends this. He caused it; he is one of the few that can atone for it. Baudoin blessed this, Clair. Whatever it took to break what Arthas has done to you, to open a path back, was acceptable to him."

The first goaty bleat erupted from the cradle, and I stared at it. "Your son, Clair. As much as Anelas, as much as Bayard. Do not hold it against him that we used the ties you had to his father to conceive him while we still had time. Your children have always buttressed your sanity, made you strong. You needed another to see you through this, and you have always wanted another..."

"I wanted another of Baudoin's." I growled, stalking to the cradle and staring into it. Raymond stared up at me, now quite awake, cheering when he saw my face. He had a tuft of brown hair, and a pair of eyes that hadn't been Arthas's in decades. "Baudoin deserved another." More than Arthas did. Arthas had never been a father to the one I had given him, content to deny Anelas. I felt...rage...rising. Rage, against the hapless man currently tending the sheep and swine outside. The mindless devotion I recalled seemed oddly lacking this morning.

"Not so hapless." Uther chuckled. "As you remember, he remembers. And yes, the Lich King is dead, and you are free to rage against the crimes he committed against you. It's only Arthas now, Lass. Left with memories he must face as you face them. I envy neither of you. I pray for both of you. My little girl. My boy. Back..."

I could see the barn door open, and Adrian stepped out into the yard. He stood there for a long moment, in the cold, before he began a slow progress to the house. I picked up Raymond and comforted him, thankful to have something, anything, to do. All I wanted to do was break down and cry. Scream. I sat before the fire and settled the baby, all the fortitude I was trying to cultivate shattered when I heard his grinding step behind me, and I burst into a torrent of tears.

"Clair. Uther." He stated, and it seemed odd to hear his voice again. It had been so damned long... "What the hell...?"

"You don't keep my daughter, Arthas. Not like that." Uther snapped, "She was a gift to keep you strong, not something for you to twist into a monster. I won't let it happen."

"Ah." Arthas sat beside me on the trestle, staring into the fire. "The dying wish of the great Lightbringer... combined with the dying wish of the great Ironfist, I can only assume?"

"Aye, lad. Then you open the door by going and dying in what could be almost considered selfless... no matter what your intentions were. And both of her deaths were just that, selfless. She loved you through it all, and was willing to die for you. Die for her babies. Die for Lordaeron, for Azeroth. That was enough to get it done."

"You could have just revived her. Why take the risk of bringing me along?"

I wish I could take this nearly as well as Arthas seemed to be, but I was devolving into the hiccupy, snotty stage of a good wail.

"Clair has never failed to be strong for her children. She needed another to be certain this worked. You were the one with the best chance to do that. Her heart was too tied to Baudoin to try to find a stranger she would become close enough to. And you had married her. She accepted that marriage. Who else, Arthas?"

"So. I was brought here to sire another." Arthas glanced at my face, then shook his head and went into the kitchen for a scrap of toweling which he offered to me. I took it, wiped my eyes, and blew my nose.

"This is as much another chance for you, lad, as it is for her. You were as much loved by me as she is. You can come back, if you wanted to. If you were willing to be only a man again. A husband. A father. A paladin."

He reached out his hands for Raymond, and I gave him over without thought, as I had done a thousand times since the baby's birth. He took him, resting his easily on his shoulder. "Clair." He breathed, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling. "I believed my father when he told me I served Lordaeron, my people, best by denying Anelas. I felt that sacrificing my son, and you, was truly what was necessary. I let another man be...the man...I should have been then. I cannot begin to apologize enough for that mistake. I won't deny another one, if you'll let me. I've been happy here, with you. And him... This is right. Let Arthas die, Clair. Let Clair die, and rest in the peace I denied her. Let's raise sheep, and babies, and pay Stormwind taxes, Besseth."

I nodded, wiping my nose again. It sounded like a grand idea after all. Let the world do without us, they'd be better off that way. It was the best, the only way, to handle this. It was time to let myself die, if not for real, than real enough for most. "Certainly, Adrian." I agreed, aware that Uther nodded and that Baudoin watched from the shadows. I had his blessings. I had Uther's. And still, in spite of it all, in spite of the fact that I had lost the desperate devotion, I still wanted Arthas. I deserved him. Raymond deserved him. And the rest of the world deserved to live without our darkness hanging over them.

31,100 words. Started the first week of September, 2008. Unedited first draft.


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